


Datura

by airplant_guy



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mystery, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Crona (Soul Eater), Possible Character Death, Post-Canon, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 59,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26719786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airplant_guy/pseuds/airplant_guy
Summary: Soul Eater is dead, or at least that's what everyone keeps saying. Maka's ready to accept that until an old friend- one she thought she'd never see again- may give her reason to believe otherwise.
Relationships: Crona & Ragnarok (Soul Eater), Maka Albarn & Crona, Maka Albarn/Crona, Maka Albarn/Soul Eater Evans, uh kinda but mostly one sided/platonic
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43





	1. Tomorrow night'll go on without you

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfic! Fun stuff. Chapter titles inspired mostly by the Strokes, Los Growlers, and a couple other bands. There are some minor OCs but mostly bc we need villains to get the story rolling and the canon ones are mostly defeated by the end of the manga series. Also no I'm not going to acknowledge the boob madness thing, no shade I just straight up don't know what to do with that.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul forgets to take his melatonin.

The distant moon stared at Soul through his bedroom window. Unable to sleep, he stared back.

It had been about four years since the familiar grinning yellow crescent he had grown up with was enveloped by the orb that now hovered ominously in the night sky. Soul should know; he was there when it happened. Hell, his own Black Blood probably still marked that stupid space rock. 

Oddly, the moon didn’t _just_ appear to be round now. It changed shape throughout the month. Stein had eventually deduced that the moon wasn’t _really_ changing shape each night- but rather, the moon was moving ever so slightly in a predictable way that caused the earth to cast a shadow over it. Fifteen days ago the moon was practically invisible, marked only by a circular patch void of stars. Ten days ago it almost looked like the crescent he was familiar with. Now it was fully exposed and glowing a murky purple, a giant baleful eye about to blink.

When Stein had explained all this to them a few years ago, Maka had nodded obediently like she understood. Soul hadn’t really gotten it, but then again it didn’t matter one way or another how the moon looked. All he could think is how _rude_ it was of the moon to mess with his circadian rhythm on a monthly basis.

Soul rolled to his side. There was a quiet _plink plink plink_ outside in the distance- wood scraping against cobblestone. Probably just the witch that hung out on their street dragging her broomstick around. Witches somehow managed to have even worse sleep schedules than he did.

Soul groaned and sat up. He knew all too well that the harder he tried to chase sleep, the more swiftly it would evade him. It seemed like a cruel trick of mother nature that a guy who loved sleep so much had such a hard time ever getting any. 

He already tried to flip his pillow like ten times. Briefly, he debated the pros and cons of popping a melatonin pill, not that those were much help anyways. 

There wasn’t much else to do except for play.

He clamored to the edge of his bed, one leg swung over the edge. His left leg, folded over his right, looked normal down until about mid-thigh, where human flesh and blood gave way to a smoothly curved sickle shape adorned with sparkling black and white keys.

It made Soul happier than he’d openly admit. He’d known he was a weapon for a long time, and he was proud of it. In the hands of his meister, together they were a force to be reckoned with. Still, he wasn’t _just_ a killing machine. It was nice to be reminded that he had the ability to create as well.

Plus, being able to turn his limb into a keyboard at will was awfully convenient- their apartment didn’t exactly have room for a grand piano.

He tested a key. It was a little off-tune, but not terrible. He found out that ‘tuning’ himself mostly had to do with what sort of mental state he was in. Not necessarily if he was happy or sad, it was less straightforward. As far as he could figure, it had to do more with inner peace or love or some other cheesy hippie bunk he didn’t fully understand. 

He closed his eyes and let his fingers roll over the keyboard, allowing a simple melody to dance through the air. The short song was only interrupted by the _creeeak_ of his doorknob turning.

“Hey.” He said.

“Hey,” Maka replied, rubbing her eyes. 

Soul knew she tried to keep a rigid sleep schedule. Noting her pajamas, felt a twinge of guilt. 

“My bad, did I wake you up?”

To his relief, Maka shook her head. “Can’t wake me up if I was never asleep,” she replied, “Can I sit?”

Soul grunted in admission and scooted over. 

“Play for me?” She pleaded with those big green eyes she _knew_ Soul couldn’t say no to.

Soul shrugged. “Sure. Any requests?”

“I don’t know, something relaxing. Artist’s pick.” Maka decided. 

Soul could work with that. He started out with slow, deep notes coming in waves, racking his brain for something by Beethoven. He really was more of a freeform jazz guy, but luckily his memory didn’t completely fail him and he only stumbled a little. Not that Maka seemed to notice or care. That was one nice thing about her, for all her righteous passion, she could forgive a bit of stumbling.

Maka let out a contented sigh through her nose. He could practically feel her heartbeat slowing as she melted into his side. It had the opposite effect on Soul’s pulse. 

It was sort of weird, but he couldn’t actually tell how long they’d been together. Like, _together_ together- it sort of just happened. When they’d first met, they were just barely old enough to enroll in Death’s Academy. They hit it off and he’d thought she was sort of cute in a nerdy girl-next-door way, but not like _that_ . Obviously that didn’t last forever, and he doubted either of them knew exactly when that switch had flipped. They’d held hands and felt warm-and-fuzzy feelings and done other things two happy grown-ups do in a relationship long before she’d actually called him the b-word. _Boyfriend_ , that is, not _bastard_ , though she sometimes endearingly called him that too. 

Even though they’d been through hell and back together and Soul would gladly put his life in her hands (and he literally did, every day), this aspect of their relationship felt delicate somehow. Like if he opened his big stupid mouth and said the wrong thing or made the wrong move it would just vanish, like a dewdrop evaporating under the desert sun. 

Soul didn’t know what the future held and he thought it was pointless to think about. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, but still, if he could freeze this moment in time forever then he was sure he’d be the happiest man in Nevada. He let himself lean back against her. The sonata he’d been playing slowed down as he grew more sleepy, fingers keying almost as if they had a mind of their own.

He let them trickle over to the far end of the keyboard. Twinkling high notes filled the air. Then, something less soft and more somber.

Suddenly, Maka stiffened. No longer, dozing, eyebrows furrowed.

“What’s up?” Soul muttered.

“What song was that?” She asked.

Soul scratched his chin. “I was just riffing. It wasn’t any specific song.”

Maka looked thoughtful. “Towards the end, it felt like I’d heard it before. But it didn’t feel exactly like _you_.” 

“You’re right. I’m actually Black Star, I just bleached my hair, got contacts, killed the real Soul, and stole his house keys.”

Maka gave him an unimpressed look.

“Okay, okay. Uh, I think it went something like this?” Soul relented. He honestly hadn’t been thinking about any particular song, just fooling around like he’d said. Something high pitched, maybe a little frantic. Or was it more slow and somber? He tried pressing a few keys but nothing quite hit the mark.

“Sorry, I think we lost it.” Soul admitted.

Maka dropped her gaze. She had a thoughtful expression that he couldn’t quite decipher. “Yeah, it’s okay.” She looked back up at him and gave him another heart-melting smile. “Hey, thanks for playing for me.”

“Sure.”

Maka gave his non-keyboard knee a quick squeeze before standing up.

Soul stared as she gently closed his bedroom door behind her. He sort of wished she would keep it open.

In a quick flash of light, Soul’s body returned to fully human, and he flopped onto his back with a sigh. Maka was right, he thought. It wasn’t his song. Soul hadn’t been entirely honest with her; he had a nagging suspicion of whose song it was, but he was worried acknowledging the thought would bring his worry to life. The moon continued to stare right through Soul, seeing things within he couldn't even imagine.

Luckily, as easily as the melody had appeared, it faded again, and Soul didn’t want to lose any more sleep over it.

He had his whole life to remember, after all.


	2. I think I feel a change of tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul's promising career as a weed wacker.

Maka ducked and rolled as something green and thorny lashed out, quick as a whip. She slashed with her scythe, unintentionally spraying the both of them with green sticky liquid.

She liked having the excuse to spend time with Soul. It wasn’t unusual for them to spend time apart- he’d been a Death Scythe for a few years now, anyways, but she sometimes pined for the days when they spent long hours studying together and setting out on quests. Well, she didn’t miss all the near-death experiences- no amount of rose-tinted nostalgia could erase the fact that most of their teenage years had been spent worrying if there would even _be_ a tomorrow to look forward to. Yet no matter how grim things could look, he was still beside her. That hadn’t changed. 

Officially, Soul was Death the Kid’s weapon. But, unfortunately (or fortunately?) scythes were not known for their symmetrical properties, so Kid usually opted to use his favorite twin guns that he’d had since before Maka had met him. Soul was usually on the bench, unless things were to get especially serious. 

He didn’t always show it, but even with the early mornings, Maka thought that he was glad to be back out on the field with her, too. 

_Ew_ , Soul said as he was showered in green juice. 

“You slash through blood and guts every day, but you think plant sap is gross?” Maka asked incredulously. 

Plant sap. They were fighting a plant monster, or something like it, Maka had guessed. It was strange, the most aggressive plants Maka had ever seen was the crab grass that took over the sidewalk in front of their apartment year after year, or maybe the cholla cactus that Black Star had accidentally sat on a few months ago. 

Generally, Maka didn’t picture plants growing to huge sizes, writhing around like live snakes with their heads cut off, and destroying buildings. 

The place was a couple hours outside of Death City. It had once been some sort of military base, large brutalist concrete warehouses standing upon otherwise blank sand dunes, but the years had weathered it away. Abandoned by any sort of organization, it had been affectionately called “Little Slab City,” claimed by drifters, squatters, and curious onlookers. Now, apparently, it had been claimed by a writhing green mass. 

Kid sent them out that morning to investigate the area following the destruction of two old (thankfully empty) warehouses by a mysterious entity. Now a third warehouse was on its way to meet its maker, Maka thought, as the green vines curled around gray concrete with unnatural strength, crumbling it as if it was a giant graham cracker. 

Plants didn’t have souls. Well, philosophically that was debatable, but not ones Maka could detect, anyways. However, she definitely sensed something. It seemed to be, by all accounts, a regular human soul: and not a particularly strong or evil one, at that.

They managed to make their way deeper into the building, avoiding swinging thorny vines.

Maka thought he was a man at first, but really, he was more of a boy. Gangly, still with acne, wearing a shirt of a band Maka hadn’t ever heard of. She wouldn’t have given him a second look in any other situation, but right now his eyes were glazed over. He moved as if he were a puppet, like the vines that surrounded him were somehow controlling his limbs as well. 

_That’s our guy?_ Soul asked.

“Yeah, but something’s not right!” Maka shouted, “He doesn’t have an evil soul. Let’s try not to hurt him!”

The guy, apparently, didn’t have any such qualms. 

A vine wrapped around a thick concrete pillar, giving it a harsh tug. Blocks of stone came crumbling down, forcing Maka to dance around, narrowly avoiding getting crushed.

“You can’t make me… You can’t make me get an internship at your law firm!” The kid muttered.

 _What’s he talking about?_ Soul asked, but Maka knew about as much as he did.

“Dad I’m not giving up on my dream! I’m giving up on _yours!_ ” The teenager said.

“I think he’s in a trance,” Maka realized.

Maka got in close, carefully avoiding hitting him with the blade of her scythe. She hit him with the blunt of the hilt, sending the kid flying. Perhaps she had hit him a bit too hard, as he stopped moving.

“Crap,” Maka said, letting go of Soul as he regained his human shape. 

Maka rolled the kid over. Now that he wasn’t attacking them, she could get a better look; he was skinny with vaguely punk-looking clothes, probably fifteen or sixteen. As far as she knew, not a DWMA student. She felt pretty bad for beating a random teenager up, but then again most scrawny teenage troublemakers didn’t go around summoning giant killer plants. 

“Hey, doesn’t he look familiar?” She turned to Soul. 

He squinted at the kid. “Not really.”

“I don’t know his name, but I think he’s the neighbor’s son. You know, he’s one of those kids who keeps trying to buy weed from you.”

Soul looked put-out. “I don’t know why everyone thinks I have that stuff,” he whined, “It gives me anxiety.”

“The weed or the stereotyping?” Maka asked.

"Yes.”

Maka did a quick head-to-toe assessment of his injuries. The teengager’s pulse was thready but other than some light bruising he didn’t seem to have much in the way of visible physical trauma, thankfully. He groaned and shifted when she pressed her knuckles down on his sternum, but didn’t wake up. Not dead, but not getting up anytime soon.

“We’d better get him to the emergency room. Or the time-out corner. Anywhere other than the middle of the desert, really.” Soul suggested wisely. 

“Could you see to that?” Maka asked, “Something’s not right. He was just a kid acting up, not anything even close to a kishin. That’s not normal. I need to check something.”

Soul nodded and took his phone out to dial. Maka put the palm of her hand on the teenager’s forehead. It was hot and sweaty, which was concerning, but that wasn’t what she was looking for. She closed her eyes and let out a long exhale, reaching out with her soul perception. 

Even though his mind was currently blank, his soul shook with confusion and fright, writhing around like a rat in a trap. Maka initially couldn’t understand why, until she sensed _it_ . A pearly, sort of opalescent energy, like a fine mist, seemed to be swirling around the teenager’s lost soul, entrapping it. Maka had never sensed anything quite like it, it certainly wasn’t anything like the black blood that had once plagued her partner. The mist wasn’t exactly a _part_ of the kid, but right now it looked like it had a firm grasp over him.

Soul put his hand on her shoulder, snapping her out of her trance. “Just got off with the Supernatural Emergency Services Dispatch. They say they'll send someone to get this guy.” He noticed the confusion in her expression. “What’s up?”

“There was something up with his soul,” Maka admitted, “I think he’s under some kind of curse.”

“No kidding, we could’ve guessed that _without_ soul perception.”

“It was like he was trapped in some sort of mist, his soul felt lost and scared.” Maka looked down, “He’s just a kid, he shouldn’t have to die like this.”

“We did everything we could. All things considered, he’s lucky _we_ were the ones on the scene. Besides, the witches at the hospital know a thing or two about curses, they’ll be able to help more.” Soul reassured her. 

Though tension still gripped at her bones, Maka managed a thankful smile. He was right; witches had once been thought to be creatures inherently bent on destruction, but it seemed Death the Kid’s pushes towards diplomacy had, albeit slowly, brought out witches with beneficial talents or otherwise kind hearts out of the cracks.

Soul looked up, suddenly distracted. “Huh,” he got up and stepped around the teenager’s body until Maka realized what he was looking at; a folded piece of paper, half-buried by sand. Soul crouched over the paper, unfolding it until it looked to be the size of a flyer. “Looks like it fell out his pocket during the fight.”

“What does it say?”

“See for yourself.” He tossed the paper to Maka. 

“ _Sacred Apple Spa: Forgive, Forget, Replenish,_ ” Maka read the text out loud. The center had a circular graphic image: half the circle resembled the titular apple sliced open to display the seeds, while the other half was green and depicted with spikes, looking more like an unpeeled chestnut than any sort of fruit. The bottom of the paper read, _spiritual healing, couple counseling, witchcraft, corporate retreats, and more!_

“I wouldn’t have pegged him for a health enthusiast.” Maka admitted.

Soul rubbed his chin. “Maybe his parents are both crust punks, so the only way he can rebel is by taking a nice bath.”

That was certainly one theory, but Maka doubted it was the case. She slipped the brochure into her pocket. 

“Maka, look out!” 

Maka heard Soul’s shout in time to see a part of the viney mass that wasn’t quite dead, moving independently from the teenager. Two leaves that looked almost like jaws were about to snap down at them, until a sudden flash of blue materialized.

The plant monster got cut in two, the victor puffed out his chest. 

“Aw yeah, we _sent it_! We totally saved your butt! That means you owe me a soda,” Black Star cheered.

Next to him, his partner Tsubaki materialized in a flurry of black sparks from the sword he held, smiling placidly. Maka was envious of the other girl’s perpetual state of zen.

“Don’t fool yourself, we totally had that one.” Soul gave his friend a fist bump. 

“You guys are normally on top of patrol duty.” Black Star remarked, “Were you making out or something?”

Before Maka could object, Soul slung his head low, “Yeah, guilty. I actually have that same issue with Kid, too. I’m starting to think it’s a ‘me’ problem.”

“Oh shut up,” Black Star gave him a playful punch in the shoulder, apparently forgetting that Soul was a bit more, well, _slender_ than he was, sending the weapon stumbling back a few steps. Soul didn’t seem to mind and gave him a raucous laugh as he reached to mess up Black Star’s intensely blue hair. 

“Some things never change,” Tsubaki observed with a smile. 

Black Star cracked his knuckles. “Me and Tsubaki were going to meet some of our buddies at the court. I was hoping to get some shots for my _DeadTube_ channel. The exposure could really boost your guys’s channels too. You in?” 

Soul looked at Maka. Maka shook her head, “Sorry Black Star, maybe some other time. It’s Wednesday, and Kid wanted us to talk to some of the new students at DWMA. I was thinking we could both use a nap before then. Showing up all sleep-deprived would make us bad role models.”

“Ooh, couldn’t get any sleep last night?” Black Star fluttered his eyelashes at Soul, “ _Nice_.”

“Chronic insomnia, dude,” Soul slung his arm around Black Star, “ _Super_ nice.” 

“Maybe we can hang out this weekend!” Maka interrupted the boys’ love-fest. 

They happily said their good-byes, Maka struggling to cut Black Star off before he started talking too much about his fitness/lifestyle videos, and promising each other they’d finally check out that new pizza place together.

Maka didn’t know it at the time, but they never would get around to seeing their plans through.

~~~

The sky was a crisp clear blue by the time Soul and Maka got back to their apartment. The air stayed pretty cool in spite of the rising sun. Even desert heat bowed its head to autumn’s chilly approach. 

Maka cracked open the kitchen window in hopes of letting fresh air inside, mildly surprised when the overgrown planter’s leaves invited themselves into the windowsill instead. For a second, she got flashbacks of the monster they’d just killed, but they seemed relatively harmless.

Maka was not known for her green thumb; Soul never stopped mourning the tiny potted cactus she had somehow murdered. _Of course_ plants she never touched ended up being the ones flourishing. She thought she’d seen this type of plant creeping around on the sides of roads or in neglected gardens; dark green leaves with white flowers that were curled up as if sleeping. Maka didn’t remember planting anything other than some pansies that had met their fate long ago, so she figured the leaves probably belonged to some native weeds, even though they looked pretty enough. Who decided which plants were weeds and which were flowers, anyways?

Maka stuck her head out to get a big breath of air, only to notice a figure swathed in deep olive robes shuffling down the street. The figure paused, appearing to peer into the neighboring building’s first floor window. “That witch lady is outside again,” She told Soul.

“Want me to grab a stick and chase her off or something?” He offered.

“Be nice. Witches are people too, Soul.” She chided him, though she wasn’t sure how to feel about the mysterious woman herself. 

“Well, she can go be a person somewhere else.”

Soul was only half-paying attention as he flipped through their mail nonchalantly, whistling the tune of some rock song Maka was sure she’d heard at a _Not Topic_ store once. He tossed her a black envelope. 

“Who’s it from?” Maka looked up.

Soul shrugged, “No return address.”

He shuffled away with a distracted look in his eyes as he unfolded what looked like a piece of notebook paper. He didn’t say anything, but judging by his focused expression Maka assumed it was a letter from his brother. The two had begun writing to each other more frequently in recent months. Although Maka wasn’t sure what prompted their reconnection, nor did she feel that she had the right to be nosy about it, it made her happy that Soul seemed to be back in touch with at least a part of his family. 

Maka shifted her attention back to her own mail. The paper was thin but deceptively sturdy and startlingly black, blacker than the construction paper you could get from the craft store. The velvety darkness was only broken up by a single word in the center-front, written in silver calligraphy: _Maka_ . No last name, no address to or from, just the one word. If it _was_ junk mail, it had to be the most high-effort junk mail Maka had ever seen. 

She unfolded it- the letter was just as minimalist on the inside as it was on the outside.

A single sentence danced along the center of the page in the same ornate script.

_Should he be forgiven?_

Baffled, Maka flipped the paper over and back, as if it would manifest something else. She tilted it upside down. She held it up to the light. As far as she could tell, those four words were all the piece of paper was willing to offer. 

“A secret admirer?” Soul appeared behind her, peering curiously over her shoulder. 

“Are you jealous? That’s kind of cute.” He ducked away as she tried to tousle his hair. 

“Yeah. _My_ love letters are never that fancy.”

“I’ll use this as reference for your next birthday card,” Maka offered sweetly, “But no, I don’t think it’s anything like that. It looks more like some sort of prank. Or one of those shady ad campaigns where they steal data from your phone.” She handed the letter over to him, watching as he mirrored her perplexed expression. 

“Who is ‘he?’ Some creepy dude pissed you off again?” Soul finally asked.

Maka shook her head helplessly. “No idea who _he_ could be.”

“Huh.” Soul gave the paper one last look before tossing it on the coffee table. “I bet whoever sent it knows you pretty well, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dunno. It seems like something out of one of your mystery books. Like a clue or a ransom letter or whatever. Just don’t stay up late tonight thinking about it or you’ll go crazy.” He was right- it _would_ drive her crazy, normally. Not right now, though: the adrenaline from their morning scrimmage fizzled away, leaving her eyelids feeling heavy. She bit back a yawn. 

“I’m going to go for a power nap,” She told him.

“Oh, hold up.” Soul took her hand and stared at her.

“What?”

“I just wanted to say… You’re really pretty when you kill monsters.”

Maka stared at him before gently prying his hand off of hers. She liked being complimented for no reason as much as the next girl, but it was still an odd thing to say. “Okay, weirdo. I think you should try to get some sleep too.”

“I’ll think about it.”


	3. Rare Hearts that Never Disagree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka ruins some perfectly good salsa.

The demonstration with the DWMA students went even better than Maka had hoped. She’d never considered herself to be one vying for attention- that was Black Star’s job- but seeing the students’ young and idealistic faces light up with awe when she held Soul was thrilling. They were transfixed when she matched Soul’s energy, lighting his blade up with a multicolored glow that would’ve made a pyrotechnician jealous. The presentation had gone so well that the professor, Sid, wasn’t even  _ too _ mad when they had accidentally chopped his desk in half. 

Eventually, Maka and the students had to be pried apart, leaving her and Soul free to wander the DWMA halls alone. It didn’t look much different than she’d remembered it; comfortably beige walls with tasteful death-themed decor. Maka had found that bittersweet nostalgia gripped her heart and she wasn’t quite ready to head home. 

Soul seemed to read her mind as he put a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t we stick around for a while? Watch the sunset or whatever.”

“Are you sure it’s fine?” Maka asked nervously.

“Ugh, how old are you again? I think we can take a few hall monitors.” 

They meandered in the halls for a while before finding their way to the balcony. 

“Did you see how their little faces lit up when they saw you transform?” Maka grinned, tailing behind Soul with a little skip in her step, “I’m used to regular people clapping for us and all that, but with the students it’s so different. They  _ really _ look up to us, like they want to be in our shoes someday.”

“They’re just going to keep hounding us with annoying dumb questions, aren’t they?” Soul rolled his eyes, “And following our advice. And we’re going to be the first to know when they conquered their biggest fears or accomplished their lifelong dreams or whatever.”

Maka stared at him until he relented, “Yeah, I love ‘em too.” 

“It’s hard to believe we were in their place ten years ago.” 

“Ugh, please don’t say that. It’s too early for me to be having a midlife crisis.” Soul complained, “Plus I’m pretty sure we were  _ not _ that short.”

“They  _ do _ get shorter every year.” Maka agreed with a nod. They settled into a comfortable quiet.

The sleepy sun set over the desert, turning white sand dunes pink, framing the silhouettes of distant monuments and plateaus with the skill of a great impressionist painter. As the sun’s warm glow grew softer and softer, the two of them were embraced by a cool night breeze.

“So. Where do you think we’ll be in another ten years?” Soul broke the silence. 

Maka gave him a curious look. Usually Soul was more concerned with living in the present; Maka had always been the planner in their relationship. He didn’t look at her when he asked his question, instead leaning over on the iron grate with his elbows folded and eyes steadily trained on the orange horizon. It might have been the sunset, but she thought he looked a little redder than usual.

“I don’t know,” Maka admitted. She once had big dreams, but beyond creating a Death Scythe (check,) graduating with straight A’s (check,) and defeating a terrifying otherworldly monster that threatened to consume the earth with indescribable fear and madness (and check!), Maka wasn’t sure if it was  _ safe _ to make any concrete goals. If she did, they would just be uprooted. Their lives were kind of crazy, that way. 

“It’d be nice to get a bigger apartment.” Maka mused, “You could finally get a grand piano. Y’know, since you won’t stop talking about how the electric keyboard doesn’t have enough  _ gravitas _ .”

“It doesn’t.” Soul insisted.

“And maybe, when our careers are more stable and we both have more free time, we could drive up to that humane cat shelter in North Vegas and get Blair a little sister!” Maka added excitedly. 

“Hm. Well, good to know you won’t have evicted me by then.”

His words are casual, but Maka perked up at a distinct nervous jitter that suddenly overtook his soul. Her own heartbeat quickened reflexively. 

“Well, of course I wouldn’t kick you out! Rent ain’t free!” She exclaimed, a little forced. 

“Mhm.” 

She leaned back against the fence, facing away from the sunset. Suddenly she’d become hyper-aware of the light  _ tap tap tap _ of Soul’s fingers on the rail. Soul had a pretty impressive poker face, but after living with him for so long, that nervous tick of his might have as well been a lit-up billboard sign that said,  _ Hey! I’m pretty damn stressed! Good luck guessing why!  _

“Well,” Soul said, “If you don’t mind me sticking around, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe, I dunno…” He shifted, his hand drifting towards his back pocket. 

Suddenly his anxiety made sense. 

_ Oh no.  _

The butterflies in Maka’s stomach turned into rocks. 

“Soul-”

“I didn’t talk to your dad or anything, ‘cause he’s a weirdo about these sorts of things and it’s a dumb sexist tradition anyways. But just to be safe I did ask Blair and she’s cool with it, so-” He was talking faster than normal now. In spite of the desert heat, Maka’s hands felt like ice.

“Soul, stop. Please.”

Maka felt Soul freeze beside her, as if he’d suddenly turned into a statue. She stared at her combat boots, unable to meet his eyes. She didn’t need to- his soul wavelength felt like it had been struck by lightning. 

“Uh, do you…” Soul stammered. 

“I know what you’re going to ask.” 

A second passed that felt like an eternity. Finally, Soul let out a long exhale through his nose and turned back to the horizon. “You know me too well, I guess.” 

She finally dared a glance back at him. His back hunched as he put his weight on his elbows. It looked like his black denim jacket was in the process of swallowing him whole. 

“Soul, I’m sorry…”

He shrugged. “‘S cool. Don’t be.” 

Maka wrapped her arms around herself. She couldn’t feel the warm sun against her back anymore. Her brain felt like it was in a food processor.  _ Didn’t she want this? _ What was wrong with her? 

“It- It’s really sweet of you. I mean, I don’t know what to say. But it’s just-”  _ Just what? _ I don’t love you? Things will be different between us? I actually _ like  _ doing my taxes separately? 

No, she knew those reasons were all lies to her.

The truth was, she was  _ scared _ .

“Maka. It’s cool.” He said firmly. “Seriously.” He gave her shoulder a firm, reassuring pat and got up. He just bared his whole heart only for her to stomp all over it, was  _ he _ seriously the one reassuring her right now? That seemed... backwards. 

“‘C’mon. Taco salad for dinner.” He sauntered towards the door from which they came.

~~~

It was weird how  _ normal  _ the rest of the night was. 

Blair didn’t seem to be around, probably harassing some poor schmuck for fish. Maka wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed at the chatty cat’s absence. 

Maka washed a robust head of lettuce to the sound of Soul’s rhythmic chopping, him whistling a vaguely familiar tune as he turned a pepper into a neat pile of aromatic green slices. They’d both kind of been on a salsa kick since they’d taken down a couple of rogue sorcerers distributing forbidden crystals in Albuquerque, and Soul insisted the jarred salsa at  _ Death Mart  _ just didn’t have enough of a spicy kick to it. 

Maka gasped at the searing sensation that assaulted her tongue, biting back a curse.

Soul pushed his glass towards her. “Have my water.” 

After desperately chugging both her own and his water, Maka studied one of the uncut waxy green peppers in her hands, looking for the little sticker on the side.

“Soul, the recipe called for jalapenos.” 

“Is that... not a jalapeno?”

“These are serrano peppers!” She shoved the offending vegetable in his face. “They’re  _ way _ spicier!”

Soul frowned. “Damn, my bad. I got them from that shady witch down the street, I swore she said they were jalapenos!”

Maka’s eyes grew wide. “You did not.” Horrified, she stared at the sinister green sauce that was currently drowning the innocent meat and lettuce of her salad. When she looked back up at Soul, she realized he’d broken into a crooked grin, trying (and failing) to hold back laughter.

“Pain in the ass,” Maka grumbled.

“No, but in six hours it will be.”

“ _ Gross! _ ”

They ate the rest of their meal in silence. Soul outwardly laidback as ever, and when they teased each other it was easy to pretend that this was just any other night. Yet, the moment she was left alone with her own thoughts, the rock in Maka’s stomach reappeared and she found herself barely being able to choke down her food. Whenever she stole a glance up at the weapon who sat across the table, she was pummeled by the memory of barely a few hours ago. How resigned his voice had sounded.  _ I guess you know me too well. _

Maka was ninety-nine percent sure that, jokes aside, Soul had not really meant to buy the hellfire peppers that she was now forced to eat. Even so, she couldn’t help but feel that the incinerator that was once her mouth and the tears rolling down her face were some sort of grand retribution from the universe for shutting him down. She forced herself to take another bite.

Soul finished before her, apparently unaffected by the peppers. She wondered if something about eating one hundred and ninety eight evil souls had made his taste buds immune to evil salsa as well. 

“Wanna watch  _ It’s Always Deadly in Philadelphia _ ?” He asked.

“I hate that show.” Maka grumbled between searing bites. “I don’t trust that short old guy.”

Soul shrugged nonchalantly. “Suit yourself. I’m going to bed, then.”

Maka followed Soul with her eyes as he got up, rinsed his dishes, and walked towards his room. 

She managed to power through the last of her salad and, after downing about a gallon of water, walked to the hall.

Maka paused in the doorway to the restroom, giving Soul’s bedroom door a longing look. Most nights he’d leave a crack in his door. Today it was firmly shut. Maka hoped she wasn’t reading into that. She briefly debated knocking. She could tell him that he meant the world to her, he was her other half, or whatever other romantic comedy quotes she could pry from her brain; but at this point her words would certainly ring hollow. Maybe he just needed some alone time. If she repeated that to herself, surely she’d start to believe it.

Maka had never run away from Soul. Not when he first played for her, not when they were teenagers fighting for their lives, not when his madness threatened to consume them both. So why now?

Maka’s brooding was interrupted by a sudden buzzing of her phone.

Who the _ hell  _ thought they were important enough to interrupt Maka's internal monologue _ \-  _ Oh, it was just Kid.

_ Greetings Maka Albarn, _ the text read. She wasn’t sure why he had to write his texts like a grad school dissertation. 

She continued to read;  _ Thanks to the sample you have graciously collected, we have found a source of similar magical energy not terribly far from Death City. I would like you and the Death Scythe to investigate. I am certain it will be no challenge for a partnership of your caliber. Please do not undertake any undue risks, we are simply looking to investigate. Most sincerely, Death the Kid.  _

Her phone buzzed a second time as he sent the aforementioned location coordinates. 

Work. That was something she knew. She could  _ do _ work. If it was one thing she and Soul were _great_ at, it was work. 

Maybe, just maybe, it would distract from the gaping pit in her stomach. 


	4. Don't Worry, Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Couples therapy kills.

The day they set out was November fourth. 

The rumbling of the motorcycle broke the serene stillness of the acrid landscape as Soul and Maka shot through, rustling yellow-gray sage brushes as they passed. Rolling hills covered in patchy vegetation seemed to span endlessly beneath the horizon At last, a distant square shape disrupted the natural terrain; human construction. They were approaching the highway. Maka gave Soul’s shoulder a squeeze, nodding towards it. 

Even though it was nearly seven in the morning, the gray sky still declined to brighten by the time the motorcycle had rolled up to the skeleton of a strip mall. A sign covered in flaking turquoise paint read, _Palm Paradise_. The long, low building held gaping arches where various stores would have gone. The building must have once been white, but was now a dusty yellow with reddish streaks of rust from the decaying metal infrastructure. Maka tried not to think about how similar it looked to dried blood.

The two of them rolled along the cracked parking lot, sizing up the structure. A gas station and convenience store flanked the far end of the lot, looking slightly newer, but not by much. If this mall was from the 50s, the gas station must have been built in the 60s. It held only two fueling pumps standing side by side, like twin headstones marking the resting spot of long-dead lovers. 

Once the motorcycle’s engine quieted, Maka hopped off the bike.

“If this is the place, I can’t believe they’re still in business.” Maka said.

Soul took off his helmet, pushing his messy hair back. “Not a lot of competition, at least.”

Maka wandered over to the highway. Both lanes were entirely empty, save for a tiny lizard that scuttled away at her approach. The road appeared to stretch infinitely in both directions. 

“Should we update Kid, then?” Maka asked. 

“In a sec. Gas this cheap’s a steal.” She turned to see him fiddling with one of the pumps. Maka gaped, there was no way this gas station was functional. Sure enough, a peeling price marker read; _Unleaded Gasoline: $1.42_ . The malls’ architecture wasn’t the only _retro_ part of the lot, it seemed. It accepted his card with a little complaint. “Drink up, babe, this round’s on me.” Soul gave his bike a loving pat, like a cowboy caressing his noble steed. Maka rolled her eyes.

Maka realized the store hadn't been quite as dead as she’d thought; a neon _OPEN_ sign flickered feebly in the dusty window. 

“Soul, this place is open, I’m going to check it out.” She called out to him.

“Mhm,” He acknowledged her with a grunt. 

Sure enough, the glass doors swung open with no issue, greeting her with a shrill ring. It looked pretty much how one would expect a kitschy gas station store to look. The front corner held an array of souvenirs; colorful shirts and hats and snowglobes decorated with aliens and grim reapers, fittingly enough. Maka held up a shirt that was probably once black but had since been bleached brown by the sun: the print on the front had a likeness of Kid’s father, the original Grim Reaper, holding up a “victory” sign. The bold text read, _I survived Death City!_ If Maka had more of a prankster streak, she’d probably buy the gaudy article of clothing for Kid, if only to see the reaction on his face to the (very asymmetrical) design.

Maka put the shirt back, neater than she had found it, giving an apologetic look to the cashier. “Maybe not today,” she said. It took her a second to realize the cashier wasn’t there. The store was empty except for herself.

“Oo-kay,” Maka said out loud. Maybe they’d gone on a smoke break, she told herself. Not like they got many customers. _Well, no big deal, I’ll just grab a snack and leave cash on the counter._

She prowled the aisles, gaze rolling over no small assortment of sugar and salt infused snacks. Maka picked up a bag of potato chips with “All Natural!” in big green letters on the front. She flipped it over, the ingredients as listed were: _Potato Beetles, Sea Salt, Sunflower Oil, Other Natural Flavors_. Maka wrinkled her nose. Maybe the gas station was owned by lizard-people.

Maka was sure she was alone, but couldn’t shake the feeling of a prickle at the back of her neck, like she was being watched. The bag of chips crinkled loudly as her hands involuntarily clenched.

She turned around. An alien. Or at least, a cartoon alien; big black eyes, no nose, and green skin had been printed onto the face of a clock which now smiled at her. Maka let go a breath she didn’t know she was holding. 

She put the chips back and turned to the protein bars. Lucky for her, there were two delicious flavors for her to choose from: _Soy Surprise_ and _Whey Far-Out_. A tiny spider crawled over the Whey Far-Out, making it impossible for her to grab one without ruining it’s little spider home. Soy Surprise it was, then. 

Maka grabbed the bar and left a few wrinkled dollar bills on the counter, when she heard a loud _crack_ directly behind her. Pure adrenaline gripped her stomach, giving her mouth a metallic taste.

Without thinking, Maka lashed out with a fist, “Hya!”

“ _Ow!_ Jeez, woman!” Soul glared at her, rubbing his jaw. In his other hand, he held a freshly-opened can of energy drink.

“You snuck up on me!” Maka accused him.

“If that was _sneaking up_ to you, you need your ears cleaned.” He growled, wincing as he gingerly touched his chin, “Why are you _so strong?_ ” 

“I’m sorry,” Maka felt a pang of guilt, “Are you okay? Can I see it?” 

Soul pulled away at her touch. “It’s cool. Just put an extra dollar down and let’s get the hell out of here.”

He walked out the door without waiting for a response. Maka rubbed her arm uncomfortably. “Sorry” probably wasn’t enough. Both for physically assaulting him, and other things.

Maka stepped outside to find him sitting on the curb, his drink in one hand and phone in the other. His bike was parked in the front of the store. His face didn’t appear to be more damaged than it normally was, so that was a plus.

“Can you get service out here?” Maka asked.

“Kinda.” Soul stuck his phone straight in the air, then at an angle, as if he was trying to do a one-armed _YMCA_ dance. “I let Kid know we made it, at least.”

“Okay.” Maka sat next to him, hugging her knees to her chest. Soul fidgeted with his phone, not looking at her. They were both self-proclaimed introverts, so it wasn’t that strange for them to be silent every once in a while, but Maka couldn’t shake off the uncomfortable feeling. A feeling that had nothing to do with their mission. She looked down at his drink. The can was light green with a graphic print of _Sakura_ petals around the sides. 

“I thought you weren’t in the mood for tea,” She observed.

“It’s not tea,” Soul took a long swig, “It’s caffeinated sugar-water.” 

“Oh.”

“What did you get?” He asked.

Maka looked at her bar. “Um. Soy Surprise flavor.” She took a tentative bite.

“Is it any good?” He asked.

Maka tried to open her mouth to respond, but found that the protein bar had temporarily superglued her molars together. She waved her hand in an, “eh” motion. She tilted the bar to his face, offering a bite. As unappetizing as the now-secondhand protein bar looked, Soul chomped down.

“What do you think?” Maka asked, swallowing.

“Well, it _tastes_ like soy, but somehow I’m not surprised.” He decided, “Huh. You should get a refund.” Maka gave a little laugh before tearing off another bite. Her eyes wandered to the concrete curb between herself and Soul- they only sat about three feet apart, but somehow it felt much further. 

“Sorry for hitting you in the face,” Maka said, choking down the last of the protein bar.

“You already apologized, you’re forgiven.” Soul said flatly.

“It’s just, I didn’t expect you to be there and I got... startled...” Soul didn’t say anything, so Maka continued, “If I hurt you…”

Soul put his arms around his shoulders, as if uncomfortable. “If you’re trying to be coy, at least be subtle about it. You’re _forgiven_. Apologizing for everything is not cool.”

Maka frowned at him. “If I’m forgiven, why are you acting so cold then?”

“I always act like this.” 

“No, you don’t. You’re a really bad liar.”

“I’m a _great_ liar,” He protested, “I fool myself all the time. You’re just too smart for me.”

“Come on,” Maka insisted, “You’re important to me and I can’t stand to see my best friend acting like a wounded puppy. Can we talk? For real?”

“For real.” Soul echoed. He glanced at her, his eyes softening for a moment. “I’m not in the right place right now. Maybe later. After the mission.”“You better not be running away again.” Maka grumbled, half to herself.

Soul’s scowl deepened, like she’d hit a nerve, though he tried not to show it. Suddenly, Maka wanted to be anywhere else. She stood up and announced, “I’m going to grab snacks for the road. We don’t know how long we’re going to be out here. Any requests?”

He shrugged. “Anything but Soy Surprise.” 

Passing the ringing bells, she made a beeline for the candy section. 

Chocolate bars, sour fruit chews, novelty Kishin egg-shaped gummies… Maka paused. She knew she wasn’t alone. “ _If you can’t find what you’re looking for, we have a wider selection in the back…_ ” A voice crooned from behind her. Maka didn’t even need to turn around- the creeping icy sensation that penetrated her senses told her that the voice’s owner was a witch. 

She turned around. The witch was stooped over as if she were very old, but knowing what she knew about witches, it was likely a ruse. A deep green hood embroidered with vine-like patterns masked her face in shadow; the only skin showing was her gnarled, veiny hands peeking out from drooping sleeves. 

“Ah, you’re back.” Maka forced her voice to be calm. In spite of the relative peace between meisters and witchkind, Maka’s instincts whined _danger!_ “I left some cash-”

“ _Yesss, exact change, thank you. We’re always low on quarters._ ”

Maka knew that if the witch had been intent on killing her, she probably would have already done so. As good a meister as Maka was, she was as good as fresh meat without her weapon. She _really_ would be better off with Soul at her side. However, running out to grab her weapon may offend the witch, plus, frankly, things were a little awkward between them right now. 

Before Maka could make a decision one way or the other, the witch spoke up again, “ _You have a lovely soul, dearie. So bright. I get spots in my eyes from a mere glance_.”

“Uh, thanks?” Maka said. She was unsure if she should have felt violated or not, but quietly zipped up her jacket just in case. 

“ _Although it’s a bit frayed at the edges. Perhaps you come seeking answers?_ ”

Maka supposed the witch was technically right, though whatever was nagging at her soul and the reason she came down on this quest were different. At least, she thought so. The poster she and Soul had found by the teenager had said something like, _couples counseling_ , but she was pretty sure that this witch wasn’t a licensed therapist. _That doesn’t matter right now, I’m on a mission._

“Actually,” Maka tried to put on her sweetest, most inquisitive smile, “I’ve been a bit worn out from work, lately. My sister keeps telling me to treat myself, she recommended a place called, uh, the _Sacred Apple Spa_?”

The witch seemed to hesitate, and for a moment Maka was afraid she’d been too on-the-nose. However, as quickly as the witch had tensed, she’d relaxed again, leaving Maka to wonder if she’d imagined the change in character.

“ _Your…_ sister _… has excellent taste, my dear… Come this way._ ”

The witch put a little “Back in 15 minutes!” sign on top of the counter before stepping out. Maka wondered if that was an effective business strategy, since she doubted every passer-by was as scrupulous as she was with their exact change, but she didn’t say anything. The witch ventured to a back corner of the store where a small hallway split off from the main floor, like where normally they’d have built the bathrooms. Sure enough, between the mens’ and the womens’ rooms was a third room with an indistinguishable symbol, like a rune. 

Maka smelled the room before she saw it- the less-than-pleasant odor of gas station restrooms was swept away by a surprisingly cool breeze tinged with sage and lavender. 

Maka knew she shouldn’t enter mysterious doorways with strange witches, she was smarter than that. But the breeze had soothed her down to her bones, and this witch really couldn’t be that bad, could she? She’d been nothing but polite so far. _Of course she’d be polite if she were trying to lure you into a trap_ , a tiny voice in her head said, but that AC felt so good that Maka felt her worries dissipate in spite of her better judgement. 

The room that expanded before them was much larger than it would’ve been possible from the outside- at first Maka thought it might have been some sort of spatial magic, but it seemed more likely that the convenience store was connected to the empty strip mall. The space was lit somewhat dimly, though well enough to make out the decor- the room was surrounded by stucco columns in various shades of pink and turquoise that must have been very trendy about fifty years ago. Shiny white and black tiles covered the floor. Purple neon lights illuminated statues of dolphins, fountains, and ceramic pots overflowing with lush, viny plants. After the yellow-gray of the desert, Maka had to blink hard to let her eyes adjust to the cooler color scheme. 

The witch stepped behind a desk flanked by two small potted palm tree-like plants on either end.

“ _Welcome to the spa,_ ” The witch spread out her hands. 

“Thank you, it looks… relaxing.” Truthfully, all the trickling fountains made Maka want to turn around and head back to the womens’ room. 

“ _I know why you’re here.The flowers whisper to me, they show me things that our human eyes cannot see… Perhaps this will show you the answer?_ ”

The witch produced a small leather pouch and tossed it Maka’s way. Maka opened the pouch to find, anticlimactically, a green apple- one of nature’s most boring fruits.

“Thank you…?” 

“ _Take one bite and the answer will become clear… two, and the fog shall lift…_ ” 

Maka knew she shouldn’t accept food from strangers. Least of all, apples. There were a million animated films and mythological stories about why eating fruity gifts from mysterious old people was a terrible idea. 

But her head was misty, the aromatic smell in the air made Maka want to sit back and stare at the ceiling for a few hours. When was the last time she’d felt this relaxed? The soy protein bar still felt sandy in her mouth, fresh fruit seemed much more appealing. Or a-peeling. The apple was so shiny, she could see her own reflection in it, all warped and green. 

A little taste couldn’t hurt, right?

Maka took a big bite of the apple. Immediately, she wanted to pucker up. It was tart and made the inside of her mouth feel like cotton. If it was a magic apple, couldn’t the witch at least have magically made it taste _good?_ This apple seemed far too sour to eat straight, though if Maka had the time she thought it would make a delightful apple pie. 

“I don’t feel anything.”

“ _It may not be apparent, at first…_ ”

“Yo, Maka. Maka?” Soul’s voice echoed out from behind her. 

“Oh. Hey,” Maka gave him a lazy wave as he stepped in, “I forgot to get your candybar. Sorry.”

Soul suddenly wore a guarded look. Maka couldn’t understand why, until she realized he was glaring at the witch. “Make a new friend?” He said cautiously. 

“Yep!” Maka said, “She seems kind. I don’t think she knows anything about the killer plants.”

“ _So.. you know about the bad batch…_ ”

“Huh?”

Something about the witch’s moon shifted.

“ _Why you’re really here… You didn’t come for answers._ ” The witch tapped her long nails on the marble countertop with a cascading _click click click_ . “ _You have no sister. You don’t want to relax. You’re a resident of Death City, are you not? You’ve come of your own accord._ ”

 _Damn._ Maka knew this would happen. She tried to summon a bit of strength, but it was like her sense of fear had been muffled by the sage-infused air. “Maybe I am,” Maka said with a casualness that surprised the still-rational part of her brain, “That doesn’t mean I’d never want to get a massage.”

“ _So… you’re the one who’s been distributing my products, no?_ ”

“What? Uh, no-”

“ _I run a reputable business. No persons under twenty-one are allowed my more potent products. And yet, time and time again those… Rotten little kids get their paws on it, no idea of its power. Some of my plants grow up bitter, rotten. I try to dispose of them, but sneaky sneaky brats find a way._ ” The witch clenched her gnarled fist so hard that the veins bulged out, “ _Do you understand how difficult it is to deal with bad press? To stay afloat as a small, witch-owned business?_ ”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Maka insisted, but the witch didn’t seem to listen or care.

“Maka, look alive!”

“ _Nightshade, shade, nightshade…_ ” She chanted, one hand held at her chest as if she were swearing an oath while the other twirled at the wrist, “ _Nightroot attack!_ ” The black and white tiles at Maka’s feet shook, she leapt away just in time as something thin and snakey wiggled its way out between the cracks. Not snakes, Maka realized, _roots_. 

Soul reacted before Maka did, tugging her back and out of the way of the living roots. The harsh movement and the touch of her partner jolted Maka out of her haze.

“Thanks!” She gasped.

“Don't mention it.”

They didn’t need to say anything else. Wordlessly, Maka reached back, allowing Soul to intertwine his fingers with hers. In a flash, the warmth of his skin was replaced with smooth metal. Maka leapt to her feet, weapon in hand.

“We’re no thieves,” Maka insisted, “But you’re selling controlled substances without a permit and disposing of dangerous plants improperly.” Maka twirled her scythe before stamping it into the ground with flourish, “For that, I’ll take your soul!”

“ _Very well, if you wish to play dirty…_ ” 

Several more roots burst from the ground, shattering the brightly colored tile below her into pastel colored shards. The witch was persistent, but Maka knew that the flimsy roots would be no match for cold hard steel. She sidestepped one tendril and raised her scythe, intending to mow down the rest.

As if she were struck by some sort of invisible lightning, a searing, sudden pain enveloped her hands.

“Augh!” She yelped, stumbling back and nearly dropping Soul.

Even the witch seemed shocked. She’d assumed her victory would be easy, but not this easy.

“Outmatched, little girl?” She purred, “At least let me have the satisfaction of my roots on your skin while you perish…”

 _Maka, what’s wrong?_ Soul’s voice sounded panicked.   
  
Soul knew what was wrong, Maka was sure of it. Maka knew he didn’t want to admit it because she didn’t want to admit it either. It wasn’t a physical problem, but a mental one. Their resonance was _off_. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why, but saying it out loud felt like it would summon something far more frightening than the Nightshade Witch. 

Maka thought of another time, when they were much younger. She didn’t even remember what they were arguing about at the time, something stupid and inconsiquential. 

“Its…” Maka stammered, “It’s like in London. Remember?”

Soul didn’t say anything. He remembered. 

The witch seemed amused at her easy victory, but she was obviously growing bored with the two. 

Thicker roots emerged, this time with hooked thorns. Maka didn’t even attempt to slash; it took most of her strength just to hold the scythe without losing him to the writhing vegetation. Frustration and desperation made her limbs heavy. She and Soul couldn’t even get close to the witch. 

When one root hooked around the top of her foot, Maka was sent crashing to the ground with a pained grunt. She had no choice but to hack at it with Soul’s blade, nearly sending him clattering to the ground when searing pain shot all the way up through her arms, as if he’d been made of molten lead. 

“ _I had hoped when a demon weapon finally came for my soul it would be more entertaining,_ ” The witch murmured, “ _I suppose I’m wrong again_.”

Maka scrambled away, narrowly avoiding her attack.

“We aren’t going to win like this,” Maka realized, “We’re just going to kill each other before the witch can.” 

_We just have to hang on until Kid gets here. Don’t get all half-assed on me. We’ll make it through._

Maka wasn’t sure why, but something about the calmness in his voice only served to stoke her irritation. Maybe the fact that it was a blatant _lie_. 

Maka dodged another strike but it was more of a stumble this time. 

“Quit acting like everything’s fine! Just admit that I hurt you!” Maka managed to spit out the words between jumps and dodges, lightning-quick strikes just barely grazing her. 

_This isn’t the right time. Focus._

“There won’t be a _right time_ if we’re both hacked to pieces!” 

_Fine!_ Soul snaps, _You’re right. I’m hurt. It sucks, okay? It really sucks. It hurts knowing that the one thing I’ve ever been sure of in my life isn’t so sure about me._

 _Ouch_ , Maka thought. She figured as much, but she was surprised at how sharply the words dug into her gut. The icy feeling in her stomach clawed at her so that she was almost caught off guard as the bandit struck again.

“Soul, that’s not true-” She managed.

 _You can obviously feel however you want about me or anyone else_ . His voice sounded less angry and more resigned in her mind, _I’ll accept that. But for now, I’m hurt and I’m scared that I ruined things with the one person on Earth who never, for a second, thought I was a freak._

Maka dared a glance down at her scythe. 

_I don’t want you to be scared of me, or of us._

For a moment, the hotness of the scythe dimmed to a low burn, like a cup of tea that she grabbed too soon. 

“Thanks for telling me,” Maka said, softly. 

Maka thought that for a moment, just a moment, Soul felt a little lighter in her hands. Like he was made of steel instead of lead. It was something. Maka raised her scythe. The witch’s roots were lowered now- perhaps she had let her guard down. But Maka wasn’t aiming for the witch.

Summoning the last shred of her strength, Maka aimed for a particularly rickety looking column. Her judgement had been right, the fake plaster column couldn’t withstand the metal of a demon weapon; drywall dust filled the once-aromatic air and it crumbled to pieces, burying the witch in an asbestos-filled avalanche. 

_We… we got her._ Soul said.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Maka panted, “Besides, she’s still alive.”

It was true. Maka could sense her leaf-green soul from underneath the wreckage. Shocked, but for a magical creature such as herself, this was barely a papercut.

_Should we get the hell out of here?_

“I don’t know,” Maka said. Getting a leg up on the witch was a victory, however a small one. But something different was coursing through her now. Soul felt a little lighter, everything around her looked a little sharper, even the artificial colors of the spa seemed a bit more saturated. She felt _good_.

“If we don’t defeat her now, who knows what trouble she could cause?” Maka pointed out, “If we give up, she’s just going to flee and do the same thing in another city. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

 _Aren’t your hands burned?_ He asked.

“A little,” Maka admitted, “Why? You worried about me or something?”

 _Why bother asking me that? You know the answer._

Maka looked down at her weapon. There was so much she wanted to say to him, but she couldn’t find the right words, and she doubted that the witch would be considerate enough to wait for the two of them to have a heart-to-heart. 

“I love you?” Maka said cautiously.

 _Yeah, whatever, I love you too._

“Ready to go get our asses kicked together?”

 _Sure, not like I had anything else planned today_. 

As if on cue, the debris shifted and churned. The witch arose with a vengeance. No more roots; the remaining plants from the walls appeared to come to life, writhing and growing. 

Maka ran at the witch, weapon ready. 

She leapt over lashing vines with newfound strength. When one caught her around the waist, Maka twisted and struck down, landing on her feet. The witch was barely ten feet away. If she could just make it closer… 

“Stupid roots!” Maka growled as, once again, tendrils of white snuck between the cracks of the tile. She kicked the roots off, tearing them up from the ground, but more appeared to replace them.

 _The jacuzzi_ , Soul said. 

Sure enough, the jacuzzi was still diligently bubbling away, unaware of the fighting and destruction. Maka cut down with her scythe, the supernatural metal creating a gash in its side. Hot, chemical-filled water poured out.

“ _Ach!_ ” The witch croaked, “ _Chlorine!_ ” 

The roots weren’t quite dead, but they were sopping wet and weakened, letting Maka scramble up towards the witch. 

Soul’s blade became a deadly streak of red and black, cutting from the witch’s top right shoulder diagonally down to the bottom left of her hip. 

The witch fell into two pieces. No blood or gore came from her, only a thick green-blackness. If Maka’s soul perception was not enough, that was surely a sign that she was not quite human. 

In a flash of light, Maka’s weapon turned flesh and blood once again, crouching beside her. 

“We did it,” Maka sighed, “Woah. We need a vacation.”

“Yeah,” Soul agreed. 

Maka felt an ominous rumble. Maybe the Nightshade Witch hadn’t been as dead as they had thought. Maka only noticed too late as a vine curled around the remainder of the column she’d destroyed. 

“Maka, watch out!” She felt a force jerk her forward. 

“ _ You know, if you prune a plant just right, it only grows back stronger. _ ” The witch cackled. 

Perhaps that was the last bit of the witch’s strength, as she dissolved into a pile of withered leaves, leaving Maka alone. 

“Soul!  _ Soul! _ ” Maka shook her weapon, but he didn’t move again. When Death the Kid arrived at the scene, he found her still hunched over him. 


	5. Who’d bring roses to my grave?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul gets uninvited from his own funeral.

Maka didn’t remember much of the funeral service. She spent the majority of it staring at her shoes. They were black high heels that she had dusted off; shoes only for the most formal occasions. Maka hated them. She hated the way the straps rubbed against her ankles, and she hated how shiny they were at the top, showing her own warped reflection back up at her. The alternative was looking up and seeing the casket. She hadn’t brought herself to look at it even once.

It was  _ her _ fault he’d died. She’d insisted on taking on a challenge they shouldn’t have. The worst part was that she knew, even if he’d survived, he wouldn’t have even blamed her. 

Ironically, the one thing Maka was sure of was that Soul would have _hated_ his funeral. He’d snicker at how everyone looked so stiff in their monkeysuits, remark how Black Star definitely didn’t even know how to do his tie, cuss in front of some old people, and make his grand exit. When Black Star, sure enough, walked in with his tie looking less like a piece of formal attire and more like a boa constrictor about to strangle him, instinctively Maka almost turned to point it out to Soul, until with a punch in the gut she remembered who the guest of honor at this funeral was. 

Death the Kid had a long and heartfelt speech, which he had obviously poured many hours into and rehearsed. Maka couldn’t hear a single word of it.

_ My fault. _

When she felt a gentle prod in her shoulder she realized it was Black Star, who nodded his head towards Kid. Oh yeah, she should say something. Surely Kid had warned her about her speech, but she must’ve forgotten somehow.

_ My fault. _

“And now a few words from the Death Scythe’s former partner, Maka Albarn.”

Part of her mind wondered if he’d meant partner in the romantic sense or the weapon/meister sense, but she supposed it didn’t really matter, but she really wished he hadn’t used the word _former_.

She just wanted this to be done.

Maka closed her eyes and took a deep breath. _Okay, let’s get this over with._

She didn’t think her wish would be granted.

When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the graveyard. 

Maka lay supine, staring up at a dark ceiling. 

She was tired, so tired. Every muscle and joint screamed when she even thought about moving. It felt as if an elephant was sitting on her chest. She tried to lift her head to no avail, grimacing as the mere attempt triggered a throbbing headache that radiated throughout her upper body.

She blinked hard. Her vision was blurry and grainy, like it had trouble getting used to the dark. She realized that the room itself wasn’t particularly dark, but rather, everything inside the room was black, lit by some hazy unseen backlight. She was reclined on some sort of couch- dark velvet cushions and an ornately carved wooden backboard. She couldn’t physically move her head to look around much, but she got the impression it looked like one of those couches that refined ladies used to faint on in old timey movies. 

In front of her, black marble tiles stretched into the shadows. The room didn’t quite have visible walls or corners, not that she could see, at least. It’s border was marked by heavy looking curtains, just as monochromatic as the rest of the decor. She recognized the outline of his piano. It was covered with a cloth. As her vision sharpened, she could make out tiny white flecks of dust on the cloth- the only thing other than her that wasn’t the color of charcoal. It hadn’t been used in some time. 

She knew this room.

It was Soul’s room- the black room.

There were no signs of life, which was unsettling since she’d only ever shared this room with Soul and the imp that was borne of his black blood. The red in the room was gone as well, drained out, leaving only black and gray. It looked as if no one had been in the room in many years. 

Suddenly, the room felt much colder. 

She was so lonely. She wanted to leave but couldn’t even lift a pinky, let alone stand up and walk.

Resigned, she closed her eyes. What a crappy dream. 

_You’re not alone._

It wasn’t really a tangible voice. It was a thought that popped into her head, but she was sure it wasn’t her own. 

_For someone so smart, you really are an idiot, aren’t you?_

The words were taunting on their own, but something about the way they entered her head was more melancholy.

“You’re one to talk,” She thought back. 

She could hear the piano. It was a slow, soothing tune, but it had a sort of darkness to it as well. It was a song that could be played during a wedding, a funeral, or maybe at one of those haunted house tours. Oddly, when she glanced towards the instrument, it was untouched.

She still couldn’t move, but the aches in her body quelled somewhat, like somehow the piano, or whatever it was, was taking the torment out of her body and releasing it into the air as music. 

Maka may not have had an ear for music, but she knew this song. She knew it painted a picture of a person, someone who was no longer with her. Yet when the song played, he might as well have been in the Black Room sitting quietly just out of eyesight. She felt a little less alone.

_Maka, wake up._

The voice was actually a voice now, almost tangible.

Even though she hadn’t moved, she had the sudden sensation of falling, like the black room was an elevator and someone had just cut the cables.

_Snap._

Maka’s eyes shot open. A face stood in front of her, but she couldn’t make out its features.

“Maka, wake up. Earth to Maka. Did you seriously fall asleep standing up?”

Ah, Black Star. 

Maka took a look around. Surely enough, in spite of her blackout and her heels conspiring against her, she was still standing. Aside from Black Star, people clad in dark colors shuffled about slowly, ignoring her. No signs anyone had noticed her blackout. 

“Was I out?” Maka asked.

Black Star gave her a weird look. “What do you mean? You just spaced out for a second.”

Maka forced a laugh, “Sorry. I guess I haven’t been sleeping well. I still need to give my speech, I suppose.”

She tried to meet Black Star’s gaze, but it was strangely difficult for her. It’s not that he looked any different than he normally did- same boyish grin, same electric blue hair, same old Black Star. Maka could focus on his left eye, or his right, or his mouth all individually, but it was like the rest of his face got smudged out of her mind. Eventually she just found it easier to stare at the collar of his dress shirt.

“You already gave your speech.” Black Star pointed out.

“Oh, right. Did I say anything good?” 

He stared at her. “You have a weird sense of humor.” Black Star finally muttered, “I guess _he_ would’ve appreciated that.”

Maka was surprised at how subdued he was acting, though she shouldn’t have been. Soul was one of Black Star’s closest friends. Maka probably didn’t know even half of the trouble the two guys had gotten in and out of. 

Tsubaki approached her next, wrapping her in a hug and whispering reassuring words in her ear. Maka appreciated her friend’s condolences, but where she should have felt warmth from the other girl’s hug, she only felt the pinprick of needles, as if the nerves in her entire body had fallen asleep. She wished Tsubaki would let her go. 

Various faces phased in and out of her vision, congratulating her on being _so brave_ , but Maka had a hard time processing them any better than Black Star’s. They all looked normal yet off, like whatever part of her brain was supposed to process faces had become unplugged. 

At some point Maka let her gaze wander over yet another nameless well-wisher’s shoulder and saw a flash of pale hair, belonging to a tall and graceful man. It could have been Soul, but he stood up straighter and moved with a sort of confident elegance Soul didn’t quite have. It might have been his brother. Maka wanted to walk over and say something to this man she’d heard so little about, but a moment later once again he was lost in the crowd. It didn’t occur to wonder who’d invited him. 


	6. It's hard to turn down a smiling friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka goes sewer diving and finds the greatest treasure of all: friendship.

There was a while where every day, no matter how clear outside, seemed gray. Food tasted gray, the books she’d loved felt gray, she swore even her skin looked more gray than normal. Maybe that was just because of the bags under her eyes. Only in her dreams, occasionally, instead of gray she would see black. 

That was normal, Maka had been told. It wasn’t like Maka was a stranger to loss. She’d forced herself to visit her friends. They’d lost a friend too. But something about her interactions with them felt hollow. She might as well have been talking to cardboard cutouts where her friends used to be. 

Maka woke up one morning bleary-eyed. Pale light shown against her pastel colored wallpaper in stark contrast with the murky hues of her dream. Outside looked overcast and gray: impossible to tell the time or even if it was dawn or dusk. She checked her phone. It read: 7:32 pm. Great, too late to actually do anything and too late to have any chance of a good night’s sleep. 

WIth a huff, she turned on her side to face the window. 

Blair the cat, looking darker than usual in the hazy light, lay on the windowsill with her back towards the bed, letting her tail droop over the edge.

“It’s hard to believe he’s gone.” Saying it out loud made Maka feel as dead as he was. “I guess it’s denial. Denial, anger, and so on. That’s how it’s supposed to go, right?”

Blair didn’t say anything.

“If I walk over to his room right now and open the door, I swear I’ll see him lying on his bed.”

Blair was being quiet. _Awfully_ quiet. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re dead too. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Maka muttered to her, reaching out to stroke her on the back. 

Where she expected soft warm fur to meet her palm, she froze. It felt more like human skin covered in melted tar. Blair wasn’t just in the shadows, she _was_ black. “Blair” jolted awake at the touch, sharply turning towards Maka. She had to bite her tongue to keep from yelping. Where Blair’s face should have been, a white “X” remained with two bulging eyes.

“Get your hands off of me, ya perv!” The cat who definitely wasn’t Blair screeched at her in a croaky, distinctly male voice. 

“Hey, hold on!” Any trace of sleepiness in Maka evaporated. She knew that voice! Not-Blair arched his back and mouthlessly hissed, but Maka was too fast. She lunged at him, grimacing a bit at the uncanny texture of his cat-shaped body. 

“Hey! Hey! Let go of me, woman!” He writhed in her grasp. He was surprisingly heavy, much heavier than a cat his size should be, and the texture of his body made it feel like she was trying to wrestle down a water balloon covered in vaseline. 

“How did you- Augh! Get here!” Maka growled through her teeth, “You’re not supposed to be there! Quit squirming!”

“Don’t tell me what to- DO!” With that last word, the cat appeared to spontaneously grow a mouth. His teeth were unnaturally flat, not fanged like a regular cats’, but that didn’t stop it from hurting like hell when he bit down on her forearm. 

“Ouch!” Maka hissed, dropping the wretched creature with a _plop_. Maka didn’t have time to examine the flat tooth-marks on her arm for long as the creature, unhurt, fled in a streak of black out through the crack in her window. Maka cursed under her breath. Even though it was cat-shaped, the creature undoubtedly had the face and voice (and terrible attitude) of the demon sword Ragnarok, but that was impossible- the demon sword she knew couldn’t be separated from its master. Had he somehow been cloned? Reincarnated? Maybe he was just a hallucination, but the throbbing in her forearm insisted he was alive. 

Maka barely had time to throw on her jacket and boots. For a second, Maka was worried she’d lost him- how was she supposed to find a cat, or a cat-sized thing at least, in an entire city? Luckily she didn’t worry for long. She closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. 

_There._

No doubt about it. Even though her Soul Perception had been strangely hazy lately, the demon sword’s oddly shaped soul wavelength stood out like a beacon. 

Maka slammed the apartment door, not bothering to lock it and sprinted out onto the street. Luckily the roads were oddly empty, not that she’d bother explaining herself if there had been any onlookers. Boots scraped against cobblestone as she followed Ragnarok’s wavelength like a bloodhound on the scent. 

“Hah, stupid little girl! No one can trap me!” She heard the scratchy voice taunt before she turned the corner of an alleyway. Cat-Ragnarok met her green eyes and she met his blank white ones. He sat in the middle of the ally with his tail curled around his paws, in a way that might have been cute if it weren’t for his weird face and the memory of his sticky skin. 

Maka braced herself to pounce on him again. _No, I need to keep my cool_ , she forced herself to pause. 

“I don’t want to trap you or anything, Ragnarok.” Maka tried her best diplomatic voice, even though the demon sword wasn’t known for being rational or cooperative. Much less so than his mysteriously missing master. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

“Hmph! Crona used to play that game!” Ragnarok scoffed, “And they lost to me everytime!”

Maka wasn’t sure how asking questions was a game, nor how someone could lose at it, but she didn’t pry. 

“Where is Crona?” Maka insisted.

Ragnarok tilted his head, “Why would you need that dweeb? I’m more than enough. Anyways, my turn! What are you wearing right now?”

“Uh, this.” Maka said, “Did you get separated somehow? I didn’t think that was possible.”

Ragnarok got up, walked in a little circle, and rolled over onto his belly, “I don’t need a babysitter. I do what I want!”

He wasn’t actually answering any of her questions. Maka sighed, though she wasn’t surprised. It was like dealing with a pouty ten-year-old.

“My turn!” Ragnarok chimed in, “Are you a vir-”

“If you’ve separated from Crona, is that how you got back down from the moon?” She interrupted him. He really was like a ten-year-old.

Even though he didn’t quite have a face, Ragnarok’s expression seemed to visibly change. “The moon!? You can’t take me back there!”

Maka barely had time to react before he darted away again. This time, she was ready, sprinting after the dark shape. As he ran, his legs began to grow longer and his torso grew bulkier, as if he was moving so quickly that his gooey body was stretching out. No, not exactly stretching- transforming. The thing that had once been a cat now had a boxy muzzle, muscular body, and short tail, like a rottweiler. Only the X-ed out face remained the same. Luckily for Maka, he was also less agile, and she almost managed to catch up with him when he rounded a corner. 

“Stranger danger, stranger danger!” The dog wailed. 

He’d slid to the side, making another turn at a ninety degree angle, and knocking over some garbage cans in the process. That was his mistake. Maka felt a surge of satisfaction as she and the dog arrived upon a dead end. Her satisfaction was short-lived, however, as the dog suddenly shrunk, and kept shrinking until he was even smaller than a cat. His front paws stretched out into wings, and he became more bird-like or bat-like in shape. Maka took a massive leap, but the bat-thing slipped through her fingers, giving a nasty little laugh as he got away. 

_Damn._

She was panting but not exhausted quite yet. She jobbed out of the alleyway and turned a corner, internally tapping into her soul perception as she did so. Come on, come on… It was quieter than before, but she sensed him once again. 

She was back on one of the main crossroads. _Church St._ and _Broken Boulevard_. She took another second to catch her breath when she saw a dark shape out of the corner of her eye. Ragnarok had changed shapes once again. Now he had a long tail and dragged his belly on the ground, like an iguana. “Hey!” She protested half-heartedly, and unsurprisingly Ragnarok didn’t bother stopping, only giving her what must have been a scornful glance. 

“Hey!” Maka repeated again, but it was too late- Ragnarok managed to fit his lizardy body through a storm drain. Maka cursed and looked around. Still no one, not even on the normally busy _Church Street_. Conveniently, the storm drain was accompanied by a manhole, only partially closed by the lid, leaving a thin crescent view into the darkness below. Well, Maka wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about splashing around in the sewer, but it wasn’t like she had any other plans for tonight. Trying to lift from her legs, she pushed aside the heavy disk of metal and slipped in. 

She stood on one of the raised walkways on either side of the sewer as her eyes got used to the darkness. It wasn’t that bad, as sewers went. The water was barely a trickle- one of the benefits of living in a desert- not many storms. Maka had been in sewers before, back in the good ol’ days when she’d hunted for the souls of evil men- what self-respecting serial killer didn’t occasionally hang out in a sewer, after all? She felt another pang. Soul used to laugh at the fact that she was the one who had to get her feet dirty, to which she’d respond by dunking his pristine blade in the murky water. He hadn’t been so happy about that. Soul’s blade probably was more like his face than his feet, so she felt kind of bad even though he was the one who started it. One time they had been mucking about in an especially small and dank sewer which her old shoes simply had not recovered from, and Soul had taken it upon himself to get her some slick black combat boots for her upcoming birthday. For a guy who pretended not to give a shit, he definitely had a better eye for fashion than her. Maka scowled. Was she seriously nostalgic for sewers? 

Maka was about to tap into her soul perception again when she realized she didn’t need to. She heard a soft _plink plink_ , like a four-legged creature padding through the shallow water. 

Following her ears, she walked along. She clicked on her phone’s flashlights but soon found that she didn’t need to. Even though the sewer was dark, there seemed to always be some dusty light working its way through the cracks, which she found odd. She started as her foot grazed on something soft, but found that it was only a plant. Strange. It barely reached her ankle, but its leaves were lush and healthy looking- beautifully dark green and unfurling in the shape of hearts. As she walked on, more of the plants seemed to seep through the cracks. She realized the leaves were just slightly fuzzy, and some of the plants even had flowers- modestly curled up into themselves as if they weren’t ready to bloom quite yet. The plant looked familiar but she wasn’t especially well-versed in native flora, so she couldn’t put a name to it. 

Aside from the plants, the sewer tunnel itself had begun to look strange, Maka realized. It was wider, far wider than a sewer tunnel really needed to be. She’d been used to Death City having strange architecture. Even though it looked cohesive on the surface, the ancient buildings were more like a patchwork- old dungeons turned into new wine cellars, walls to separate basements built, catacombs relocated, that sort of thing. Even the school had networks of tunnels that seemed to shift and churn as if they were alive. Now, what once looked like a sewer looked more like a dignified hallway, though the trickling stream in the center of the tunnel remained. The walls were stone with carved panels depicting scenes that seemed mythical but vaguely familiar, though Maka couldn’t put her finger on where she’d seen them before. 

She paused to look at one of the panels. At first she had trouble making it out, the shadows shifted on it that made the stone look almost fluid for a second.

A rectangle dominated the image, with a humanlike shape leaping off of it. 

For a second, she wondered if it was some sort of religious figure.

Then she realized it looked suspiciously similar to the cover of an action movie she’d watched with her friends a couple weeks ago. Death Hard? Lie Hard? Something like that.

“Okay. Weird.” She’d meant it as a whisper but it was still enough to echo several times throughout the hall, as if there were three other Makas parroting her.

Maka picked up her pace again, deciding against examining any other of the panels on the wall. She couldn’t hear Ragnarok anymore but could still sense something up ahead. She had to keep moving forward. Maka had to take care not to trip on any of the plants. Seriously, was this a sewer or a botanical garden?

Just as soon as that thought popped into her head, the tunnel ended in a vast, grand room.

She heard the room before she saw it: the trickle of countless tiny waterfalls echoed in a space larger than she would have thought possible in a sewer.

It was circular, with six ornate Gothic columns: her tunnel’s exit landed between two of them. The lighting was colorful even though Maka knew that couldn’t be right, until she peered up to see beautifully ornate stained glass windows, easily twice her height, simmering with kaleidoscopic colors and patterns too complicated and beautiful for her mind to decipher immediately with anything more insightful than, _woah._

It would have looked like a grand cathedral if it hadn’t been for the plants. They looked different than the dark green shrubs she’d seen growing when she first entered the sewer. These had waxy jagged leaves and thorny stems. _Roses_ , she knew immediately. They weren’t garden-variety roses though, unless the garden belonged to a literal giant- their leaves were unnaturally big, if she picked just one she could have used it as an umbrella.They could have been jungle plants if it weren’t for their distinct obviously rose-like flowers. She wasn’t sure why, but the redness of the roses startled her the most. Up until now, it seemed like her days were plagued by green and gray. 

The waterfalls trickling out of the halls collected in a pool at the bottom of the cathedral. To Maka’s simultaneous shock and relief, they were clear and cool, and the room smelled like a natural cave more than anything. Death City must’ve had a hell of a sewer plant. 

“This is who you’ve been looking for, now leave me alone, would ya?” A scratchy voice commanded. Maka jumped at the voice. She almost forgot who had led her to the sewers in the first place. Ragnarok sat, catlike once more, on a small pedestal on the opposite side of the room.

Maka was surprised at herself for noticing the casket last. The room was overwhelming, she supposed, but she still had no idea how her mind could have skipped over the eight-foot long black rectangle of polished wood. 

  
In spite of the beauty of the room, Maka wanted to throw up into the clear water. 

Soul was in there. She knew it. 

She wasn’t sure why Ragnarok had led her here. Maybe, detached as he was, he was just as sick of her moping as everyone else. Maybe he was what she needed to accept the truth, to move on. 

“I, yeah. Thank you.” Maka bowed her head, trying to hold back tears. She wasn’t sure what else she could say. 

The skin on the back of her neck prickled. When she opened her eyes the top of the casket had vanished into thin air. She thought that Ragnarok may have unlidded it, but the black figure didn’t seem to have moved. _Oh, Death_ . She was _definitely_ going to throw up.

She looked at his feet first. Black shoes. Okay. Then up towards his shins was maybe when she sensed something off. Soul wouldn’t be wearing a robe. Death the Kid had described his handsome black suit. The word _handsome_ in that context made her head spin. Nonetheless, whoever was in the casket was definitely not Soul Eater. 

The person in the casket, despite their current predicament, was certainly alive, as their sunken eyes slowly opened to meet hers.

“Crona.” Maka exhaled in a shaky whisper. 

~~~

Maka thought she handled the news of Crona’s presence with grace and maturity.

Truthfully, she had mixed feelings that tossed and tangled around in her head like eels. Crona had suffered in ways Maka couldn't comprehend and, try as they might, they wavered on their path in ways that were more obvious as she grew older. They hurt her, which she could forgive. But now that Soul was really gone, she'd come to realize Crona had done more than hurt just Maka. In the end, Crona had trapped themselves on the moon, leaving her behind. Maka had felt the prickling of grief and guilt that they were forced to bear that burden, even though it had ultimately been their own decision and she knew it. Now, instead of feeling happy or angry or relieved she mostly just felt... Perplexed. That was okay, she decided, she’d have time for other feelings later. 

In truth, she was probably completely desensitized to strange news to the point where her emotions were like, _well this is happening now, let’s just go with it._

“Make yourself at home. I’ll make us something to drink. Coffee or tea?”

“I’m not sure what the right answer is.” Crona mumbled. They had found their way to the corner, sitting cross-legged on the floor between the couch and the wall. Ragnarok had no such qualms, spreading out on the couch with his belly up.

“Tea it is,” Maka decided, “And, uh, Crona, you can sit on the couch if you want. It won’t bite.”

“No way! The couch is taken!” Ragnarok stretched his legs wider, until he was less the size of a housecat and more the size of a panther, his big head and tail spilling out on either ends of the couch.

“I’m okay with the floor.” Crona twirled their fingers around each other.

Maka sighed, she couldn't make them do anything. “Fine. Ragnarok, Just don’t stain it, please,” she said halfheartedly. The truth was, they could probably use a new couch anyways. 

She poured two cups of chamomile tea, hoping that the herbal brew would calm Crona’s nerves, and invited them to sit at the kitchen table. Crona wrapped their bony fingers around the teacup and took a polite sip, wincing a bit at the temperature. 

“You should let it cool down.” Maka told them.

Crona gave a small nod and set the cup down.

For a while, neither of them said anything, letting the steam waft from their drinks. Maka studied Crona. She had toyed with the idea that their presence was some sort of dream or illusion, but it was hard to fake the sensation of their lilac colored soul and the softly melancholy ripples it produced. There was something different about Crona, but she was certain that this _was_ Crona. She studied their face, surprised to find that it felt like meeting their gray eyes had caused some of the fog in her brain to clear out. She didn’t feel dizzy or like she needed to look away from them. 

Crona seemed aware that they were being studied, but didn’t say anything, only squirming a bit and staring down into their cup. When they realized Maka still hadn’t looked away, they flushed pink. It was something so simple, yet on Crona it looked alien. 

Maka’s eyes widened.

“That’s what’s different about you!” She suddenly exclaimed, “Your blood isn’t black anymore, is it?”

“What?” Crona sat up sharply, dropping the cup with a clink. They didn’t seem to notice as the hot liquid spilled over their clothing, instead just staring at their hands as if they no longer belonged to them. Suddenly, as if controlled by a puppeteer, Crona pulled away from the table and staggered towards the kitchen.

“Crona, what are you doing?”

Maka caught a flash of silver and realized too late that Crona had pulled a steak knife from its block. 

“Crona, stop!” Maka jolted up and grabbed them by the shoulder so hard that they stumbled back, but by that time Crona had finished what they were trying to do. 

The damage wasn’t as gruesome as Maka had feared; the tip of Crona’s index finger had been split open as if they’d received a papercut. Sure enough, drops of a deep ruby liquid welled up where the skin had split. Crona seemed transfixed, giving Maka the opportunity to yank the knife out of their hands and tossed it into the sink.

“Ouch,” Crona said belatedly, proceeding to put their cut finger in their own mouth.

“There are more sanitary ways of looking at your own blood!” Maka protested, “Hold on, I’ve got first-aid equipment in the bathroom.”

“Hooray! Do it again!” Ragnarok yelped excitedly from the couch.

Luckily, Crona didn’t seem to hear either of them, and Maka found they hadn’t moved by the time she’d grabbed a bandage and some disinfectant. They winced at the sting of the disinfectant but didn’t protest as she wrapped the tip of their finger neatly in the bandage. 

“My blood used to be black,” Crona told her once she was done.

“I know.” Maka said.

“I-I’m not sure how to deal with it turning a different color. I don’t understand why this is happening.”  
  
“You and me both.” She said, resigned.

Crona didn’t say anything to that, but Maka wasn’t ready to let them go just yet. She took a deep breath, letting her jaw unclench and her shoulders droop. Oddly, with Crona being so naturally anxious, Maka grew more calm in return. 

“Crona, would it be alright if I asked you some questions?”

Crona looked put on the spot, as if they’d expected to be dragged to an interrogation room, but they nodded.

“How did you get to Death City?” Maka asked.

“Oh, that. I talked to Asura and he promised to be good. I even told him my favorite games I used to play with myself when I was alone. Just to be safe, I locked the door behind me, and the next thing I remember is you letting me in.”

Maka furrowed her eyebrows, “You mean me letting you _out_ of that coffin?”

Crona shrugged, “You let me into the coffin.”

Maka let that point pass, since something else was bothering her, “So Asura is still trapped.”

Crona nodded, “Yes. He didn’t like the moon much at first. But he’s scared to go outside now. Just to be safe, I locked the door behind me.” 

“I remember you saying that.”

Crona nodded. Maka wasn’t sure what they meant by that, but she did believe Asura was still safely contained. She’d felt the wavelengths of his madness even as a much younger and less experienced Meister and, even though she wasn’t having the best of weeks, she was certain she’d feel it if he had returned. 

“Okay,” Maka continued, “Can you tell me why you wanted to come to Death City?”

Crona stared at her blankly, then slowly gave her a strange smile. “Oh! Is… Is that what you call a joke?”

Their tone was genuinely confused, not sarcastic, but Maka still prickled uneasily.

“No, I don’t know how you got here. Do you remember?”

Crona’s smile faded. “You were the one who called me down here. You’d lost something.”

Maka tried to hide a wince as a pang of grief gripped her, but she was pretty sure Crona noticed, even if they didn’t know why. 

“I did lose someone important to me.” Maka admitted. No point in lying. “Soul. He passed away recently while defending Death City.” _And me_.

Maka was surprised that no tears came this time, but she still swallowed a lump. “I appreciate you coming here if it’s just to wish your condolences. I really do. But if you came here to help me find something I’d lost, well… You’re here for no reason, then. He’s dead.” She stammered that last word out, recomposing herself, “I don’t see how you can help with that.”

From the couch, Ragnarok snickered.

“I don’t see what’s so funny about that.” Maka stood up. Her grief ignited into rage, she didn’t care how big Ragnarok could get. She could still cave his skull in.

“Aren’t you going to tell her Crona? It’s a riot!” Ragnarok goaded them.

Crona suddenly looked uncomfortable. Well, more uncomfortable than before. 

“We have a good view from the moon. There’s not much to do up there other than play ‘I spy’ with Asura. Sometimes I just like to watch the earth spin.” Crona mumbled, “The scythe boy and I have a connection, even if he doesn’t like it. We both have black blood.” Crona brushed their thumb against their bandaged finger, “Or _had_. I could tell if his blood had been spilled. He’s not dead.”

A million emotions coursed through Maka, but she forced them all down. _Don’t hope,_ she chided herself. Crona, for all their merits, was always a few screws loose. 

“That’s not possible.” Maka said, “I was at his funeral. I saw them put him into the ground.”

“You didn’t _see_ him, though.” Crona insisted.

Maka grit her teeth. She didn’t know how they could have known that. In truth, she wanted to snap at Crona, even though she knew they weren’t saying these things to intentionally hurt her. Crona seemed to sense this and dropped their gaze.

“Maybe you’re right.” They said, but they didn’t sound convinced. 

“Quit lying to make her feel better, Crona.” Ragnarok said, “Face the facts, girlie! He left you. Your boyfriend probably dumped you! I bet he’s probably in Vegas covered in smoking hot babes right now.”

Maka ignored the demon weapon. 

“Okay, Crona. Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say Soul _is_ alive,”

Crona nodded.

“Where is he?” Maka asked.

Crona gave a little frown. “There’s something blocking my view now and I don’t know what. He could be very close or very far. Maybe he put a veil around his soul, or there’s a veil around us. All I know is we’re not on the same side of it.”

Maka nodded, somehow understanding. It was a small relief knowing that her soul perception wasn’t the only one that was hazier than normal. Then again, this was _Crona_ ; maybe it just meant she was losing grip with reality like they so often did. 

She thought back to her dream in the black room. It had to be Soul she sensed in there. Not a ghost or an echo, but the beating soul of a living, breathing human. No matter how much she tried to run from the glimmer of hope, she was almost certain Crona was right. The phrase _folie à duex_ popped into her mind. Madness of two. She read about it in a psychology book somewhere. Well, if she was descending into delusion, at least she was going down with a buddy.

“Can I ask you one last thing, Crona?”

“Mm.” 

“I don’t know if you’re here because you want to be or because of some mistake, but I don’t want to make you do anything unless you want to do it of your own accord. Do you want to help me find him?”

“I want to help you.” Crona sounded resolute.


	7. There’s nothing as depressing as good advice.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka humansplains death to a Death God.

Maka had set up Crona with a futon she had lying around in the closet. She’d offered them access to Soul’s room, but they refused. _Thankfully_ , since Maka herself had not found the courage within herself to so much as turn the knob since he’d disappeared. Not died, _disappeared_. Part of her thought that Crona, for all their quirks, was more perceptive than they let on. 

Maka herself slept fitfully that night, drifting in and out of dreams she couldn’t fully remember outside of a vague unpleasantness. Whenever she woke, she’d stare at the flowers that grew outside in the window planter. They were fully open, practically glowing beautiful pearly white on the otherwise overcast night. 

“I was thinking we should bring you to see Kid today.” Maka said, speaking over the sizzle of frying eggs. She poked at one with her spatula. 

Crona nervously rubbed their arm. “The Death God.”

“The one and only.” She affirmed. One of the three eggs’ yolk was broken. Sixty-six percent success rate, not bad but not good. Maka could understand Crona’s apprehension, given their track record with Death Gods. That, and the fact that she supposed they were technically a Kishin. A Death God and a Kishin tended to be about as friendly with each other as gasoline was with fire. 

When Crona didn’t follow up, she turned to him with what she hoped was a reassuring smile, although she held her own apprehensions, “Kid’s _not_ his father. He’s very fair and will judge you by your current actions, not your past. Plus, if you have information on his Death Scythe, I’m sure he’ll be as happy to see you as I was.” Maka paused, then grimaced a little at her words, “Not that I’m not happy to see you for other reasons!” She quickly added.

Crona didn’t seem to notice her slip-up but nodded. Maka turned to Ragnarok. She didn’t really think it would be a good idea to bring him to a potentially important meeting, but she didn’t really trust him not to set her apartment on fire while she was away either. She wondered if there was some sort of child care center or pet hotel she could drop him off at for the day. 

“By the way, Crona, did you and Ragnarok… Split up? Physically, I mean. Can you still fuse together?” 

Crona and Ragnarok looked at each other. “I don’t really feel like it. Ask me tomorrow.” Ragnarok said, and Crona didn’t protest. Maka had never really known what to make of their relationship. Sometimes Ragnarok did what Crona said, other times he seemed like a bully from a high school drama who would gladly peer pressure his friends to drink underage and dunk a nerds’ head in the toilet. They probably needed each other too, in their own weird and maybe unhealthy way.

Maka turned back to the eggs. She scraped at the edge of the whites, finding that, much to her annoyance, they had become glued to the frying pan. She pried the egg off with as much tact as she could, but unfortunately it was just too much for the yolk, and she could only watch as the golden liquid spilled out of its neat little bubble. Oh well, one out of three. 

~~~

The sun was well above the horizon by the time Maka and Crona had set out, the latter opting to carry Ragnarok while he took the shape of a rat. Maka had sent Kid a text explaining the situation: everything she could deduce about Crona’s presence in the city, Asura’s current location, and what this might mean for the future. Kid had texted her back, “Very well. We shall meet at 8.” 

Luckily, Crona did not draw a significant amount of attention at the DWMA. Most of the kids were too young to have been directly involved in the battle with Asura, and it seemed like most of the professors were already tucked away in their classrooms, prepping for the day. 

Kid had requested they meet in an unused lecture hall. Rows of empty seats watched as Maka and Crona entered. Kid sat at a neatly arranged table, sipping tea in a humorously tiny cup. She noticed her old professor, Sid the zombie, grading away at some papers. His desk had been fixed since the incident she was partly responsible for, but judging by the shoddy job- two halves of wood haphazardly attached with a stitch-like row of surgical staples so that it still slumped towards the middle- she figured Stein had done it. Why they got a medical doctor to do carpentry, Maka wasn’t sure. Actually, she wasn’t even sure if he was a _medical_ doctor. Either way, that poor desk didn’t have a great prognosis. 

“Maka. Crona.” Kid nodded at the both of them. He squinted at the creature on Crona’s shoulder. “Demon-sword.”

“Good morning, Kid.” Maka greeted him.

“I received your text message.” Kid affirmed. “I do quite enjoy reading your text messages. Curt, clear, proper punctuation, no unnecessary acronyms or... _emojis_.” He said ‘emoji’ as if it was a strange, foreign word. Maka could only imagine what the poor young Death God was exposed to via Liz and Patty’s texts.

“Thank you!” She smiled.

Kid turned to Crona. “Would you like me to restore your former quarters? Of course, that room is now used for cleaning supplies, but I am told that the scent of bleach can be very soothing.” 

“Actually, Maka is letting us stay over,” They said.

“Very well. Although initially I was concerned about a Kishin in the midst of Death City, I must admit you seem quite… Un-Kishin-like.”

Crona gave a nervous little gesture, like they weren’t sure whether to shrug or to shrink away. “I got better…?”

“I shall let the city officials know, and to treat you as we would any guest.” Kid said.

Maka smiled. That went easier than she thought. “There’s actually one other thing,” She added. Kid raised an eyebrow. “Crona, well, I and Crona both have been talking. We think that there may have been some sort of mistake. Soul isn’t dead. Or, not as dead as we assumed, I suppose.”

Kid grew pale- well, more pale than he already was. “What.”

“It’s hard to explain, but we both sense it. You should be able to sense it too, if you really concentrate. It’s sort of like an echo. I can’t pinpoint his exact location, but maybe if the three of us put our heads together-”

“Maka.” Kid interrupted her. His voice felt like ice. “Soul has perished. You,” The skin between his eyebrows wrinkled almost imperceptibly, as if to mark his distaste for what he was about to say, “You saw _him_ at the funeral. His body.”

Maka frowned a little. “I know what we all saw, but he’s my partner. He’s been my partner for years.”

“I am a Death God.” Kid reminded her.

“I know,” Kid was not known to be insecure or overly formal, in spite of his prim and proper behavior, but suddenly Maka got the distinct feeling she’d just disrespected him somehow, “I believe you when you say he’s dead, but there’s something still here. I can feel that he’s with us. I mean, maybe he’s a ghost. But it’s my fault he died, I made him fight when we should have just come home. It’s my responsibility. If he could just somehow be brought back…” She turned to Sid.

Sid didn’t look up from the papers he was grading, his beefy blue forearms flexed as he clenched his red pen. “When I was alive, I was a decisive man,” He began, “The day of my murder I still had a job to do and by Death I was going to do it. Teaching you whippersnappers! Yes, when they brought my body to Stein, my soul was still lingering closeby and my flesh, well, I was as fresh as sashimi at a Kyoto fish shop. If the kid has moved on, body and soul, he’s moved on. Being a zombie just ain’t for everyone.” 

“May I speak?” Crona murmured from behind Maka. “He’s not a ghost or a zombie. Soul, I mean.”

Kid interlaced his fingers together. “And you are aware of this how?” He asked.

Crona fidgeted nervously under Kid’s intense stare. They looked down, twirling their thumbs together. “I-it’s like he’s behind a veil, or something. It’s hard to explain, but…”

Kid had apparently heard enough. “Maka, with all due respect, your companion does not seem as certain as you are.”

Maka scowled. “Maybe if you would just hear them out…” She muttered.

A tense moment passed where no one spoke. At last, Kid turned to Sid. “Professor. It’s been quite some time since Crona has had the opportunity to tour the DWMA. Perhaps they are feeling nostalgic?”

Sid got the message, getting up and putting one sturdy hand on Crona’s shoulder. “When I was alive, I gave splendid tours. History, architecture, you name it. That’s the kind of man I was.” Crona stammered unintelligibly, but saw that it was useless to protest the zombie’s offer. 

“I’ll grab you before I leave,” Maka gave him a little wave while Crona’s eyes said a silent, _help me_. At last, when they were out of earshot, Kid turned to Maka once more.

“I apologize for raising my voice.” He said. “In fact, I must offer my apologies for not being more supportive during your loss. It’s been a difficult month.” Kid looked down a little. “I must confess, I understand where you’re coming from. When Lord Death passed on, there was a time when it didn’t feel quite real. His soul was so inextricably tied to this city, it felt like every brick in the buildings and every stone on the roads was somehow part of him. I suppose, in a way, it was.” He looked down. Maka felt a pang of empathy for her friend. “You and Soul shared a bond that I may very well never know. Being mortal is as much a curse as it is a blessing, I suppose.”

“That’s a nice way of saying I’ve gone mad with grief.” Maka mumbled, resigned.

“Perhaps there is some truth to what you’re sensing. It may be an echo, or something similar. But Soul’s spirit at its most fundamental has passed on to the place where all mortals must go. The only thing we can do is accept it and honor his memory by continuing to live our lives to their fullest.” Kid wasn’t a physically affectionate individual, but he reached out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. It felt oddly hollow. Maybe since he wasn’t a human. When she looked up to meet his eyes, a sort of buzzing seemed to fill her mind, like at the funeral. It was like whatever part of her brain processed faces froze up and even though his features all looked normal and pristine as ever, it was like trying to mentally put together a jigsaw puzzle. Maybe she was having a stroke, she thought dryly, as if she didn’t have enough going on. 

“It _is_ what he’d want,” Maka admitted. If there’s one thing she was sure of, Soul would have wanted her to find peace, whatever that entailed. He never really was the jealous type. “But,” Maka continued, “If this is all in my head, why does Crona sense him as well?”

Kid’s lips twitched into a very slight frown. “May I be frank?” He asked.

Maka nodded in admission, so Kid continued, “Crona does not appear to harbor the madness wavelengths they did when we met last. However, this will not be the first time a potentially malicious entity has surpassed the DWMA’s security system. I’m certain you recall their mother, the witch Medusa, was able to hide her true nature magically while within these very walls.”

Something hardened inside of Maka’s chest. The thought of that woman- that _snake_ , turned her blood into acid even after all those years. 

“Crona is _not_ their mother.” Maka growled.

Death the Kid backed up slightly. “My apologies, I did not mean to insinuate anything more than a correlation between the magical prowess of the two. Although, I must admit, I am also curious about the timing of Crona’s arrival.”

“What do you mean?” She asked, guarded.

Kid wove his fingers together once more, almost delicately, as if mulling over his words. “I do not think it is a coincidence Crona’s arrival corresponded with a point when you were at your weakest.” 

“I’m _not_ weak.” Maka clenched her fists, “And _I_ wanted Crona to come.” The last part was a half-lie. They had told her that they sensed her call for help, so it wasn’t _exactly_ like she overtly invited them to hop on down to Death City for a little vacation. She was happy Crona was here, if not a bit conflicted, but she didn’t like where Kid’s train of thought was headed. 

“Maka, you’re an intelligent young woman.” He didn’t seem to mean it as flattery, “But you’re grieving. You’re vulnerable. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m concerned that your acquaintance is merely repeating what you wish to hear in order to validate your own delusions while bolstering their reputation in your eyes. I don’t know what their motivation is, but we must play safe and accept the one irrefutable fact: Soul Eater is passed.”

Maka may have been intelligent enough, but unfortunately that didn’t necessarily come as a “buy one, get one free” with patience.

“ _Why won’t you listen to me?_ ” Something about his last sentence made her snap, and before she knew what she was doing, she lunged forward with a fist. She wasn’t really aiming to hurt him, mostly just push him. Kid simply caught her fist in his hand, her motion came to a dead stop.

Although he had the appearance of a slender teenage boy with less meat on his bones than she did, his arm didn’t budge. It wasn’t even like trying to arm wrestle a man stronger than she was, it was more like trying to budge a steel statue.

It was easy to forget that this neatly dressed high school senior was actually an immortal being.

She met his eyes, flaming green on ice-cold amber. Even with her vision distorted as it was, she remembered how Kid’s face had always been breathtakingly beautiful. Not in a romantic sense, but in a way that was distant, timeless, and untouchable. A porcelain statue. _Inhumanely perfect_. Not a single facial hair or pimple dared to mar his immaculate skin- a herculean feat for a teenage boy, Maka knew all too well from her friendships with Black Star and Soul.

Maka had always felt a certain kinship with Kid. They both had a certain respect for approaching their problems with a strategic eye, and she was pretty sure he was the only one who could compete with her in terms of the raw amount of time spent at the library. In this moment, however, Maka was reminded of just how different she and the Reaper were. 

“Stop this foolishness. It’s unbecoming.” Kid told her, sounding less like her friend and more like he was scolding a small child. Maka’s hand fell away from him, but her glare did not. Kid brushed off his suit. 

“I’m not my father.” He stated, “I would be able to sense if the Kishin had escaped his prison. I will allow Crona to be exhumed from their crimes on this basis. However, I cannot condone the effect they are having on you.”

Maka ripped her fist from his grasp. He let her go with no argument. She didn’t know whether to scream or to cry, so she just stared at him, panting like a wild animal who knew too well it had been bested.

“Maka.” Kid said. “You are easily one of the DWMA’s finest meisters, if not the best. I cannot control which path you will take. So long as you do not disturb the peace of the world, you and Crona may roam as you please. However, if you give in to your madness, then I am sad to say that I will have to defy your partner’s memory and take whichever course of action may be necessary.” 

Maka felt an icy chill crawl up her spine. Suddenly the being in front of her wasn’t her friend. He was a God, and she was just a meddlesome fly that would be slapped should she hover too close. She forced a stiff bow, or something like it. “I understand, Lord Death.” she managed. She could still feel amber eyes boring into her back as she saw herself out.


	8. Black Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka visits a National Park without buying an annual pass.

Maka and Crona stopped by a small cafe on their way home. Somehow, Kid’s blessing had gotten around and no one stopped to give them a second look. Oddly, no one paid either of them much attention at all.

Maka sipped her drink somberly, trying to ignore the burning feeling of something between anger and embarrassment. She was upset with Kid, even though she had to admit he had a point. As the meister of a Death Weapon, she should know better, logically. Even so, the logical half of her brain was overwhelmed by the unwavering feeling in her gut.

Once they returned to their apartment, Maka excused herself for a nap. In spite of her bad mood, once her head hit the pillow she was out like a light.

When Maka opened her eyes she wasn’t surprised to find herself back in the Black Room, but was pleased to find that her body felt… lighter, somehow. Still heavier than when she was awake, but at least she managed to lift her hand to her face. 

Maka had half-assumed that there was some trick of the light that made the entire room as monochromatic as an old movie, but her skin looked mostly normal in color. Mostly, because it was semi-translucent, as if she were a hologram. She still  _ felt  _ solid. Fascinated, she lifted her palm up towards the spotlight and wiggled her fingers as the light filtered through. 

“You’re back.”

Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to hear Soul’s voice. She rolled her head over to see him materialize at her side, sitting on a wheeled stool that she wasn’t sure where he had gotten from. He donned a suit like he normally did in the Black Room, only it was solid black instead of pinstriped with a somber gray button up beneath. She wasn’t sure if he looked more like a depressed office worker or a kid at a funeral. Most likely he just looked like a dead guy in a casket. Of course, not that she’d seen him. She didn’t need to. She was seeing him right now. As he shifted, the light caught his hair, framing his face in a white halo. 

“You’re  _ so _ pretty.” Maka said, reaching her hand out to pat the top of his head.

Soul didn’t resist. “Yeah, you’re still hallucinating.” He said. He removed her hand from the top of his head, but continued to hold it in his lap. His fingers were smoother than hers, which were calloused from a life of combat, something she noticed even in a dream.

Maka frowned. The guy  _ died _ for her, couldn’t he just take a compliment? “Of course I’m hallucinating, I’m not stupid. It’s a dream, everything here’s a hallucination. You’re not even supposed to be here.”

Soul looked hurt. It was an expression that looked too familiar on his face, at this point. “You don’t want me here.”

Maka sighed. “I want you here  _ too  _ much. That’s the problem. I’m trying to get used to your being gone when I wake up.”

“What makes you think I won’t be here when you wake up?” 

“You’re  _ dead _ .” Maka informed him. Maybe he hadn’t gotten the memo. 

Soul gave her a sort of funny look, “I’m not dead.”

“Of course you are. You were  _ at _ your own funeral. As the corpse of honor.” Maka grit her teeth in frustration. Was she really having a debate with a figment of her imagination shaped like a guy who’s been dead and buried for a week? What did it even matter? Fictional or not, Soul Eater had a way of getting on her nerves sometimes.

“If I  _ am _ dead,” Soul pointed out, “And this is  _ your _ dream, why are we here in the Black Room?”

Maka shrugged. “I’ll be sure to ask my limbic system about that next time she comes over for tea.”

“Maka you’re  _ so _ lame.” Soul leaned his arm on the couch, so his face was almost directly above hers. “Okay, this is your dream. So, the two of us could be literally  _ anywhere _ you could imagine, and we’re stuck backstage in some seedy jazz club?” He frowned, “Remind me not to let you pick where we go on our honeymoon.” 

“We won’t be going on a honeymoon because I can’t date a dead guy. It’s illegal.”

“I’m not dead,” Soul repeated, “But if it makes you feel better, we can just be friends for now. Where would you want to go on a friend-date?” 

Maka rolled her eyes. Dead-Soul was talkative. Maybe there weren’t a lot of other girls to talk to in the afterlife. 

“Not Italy.” Maka said immediately. 

Soul nodded in agreement, “New York pizza is better anyway.”

“How about the Grand Canyon?” Maka asked.

“It’s just a big ditch, but it beats this place I guess.” Soul leaned over her and pressed her hands together within his own, “Picture it.”

Maka nodded and closed her eyes. She’d only been there once, when she was very young. Her dad held her hand tightly so she wouldn’t get too close to the edge. Even though it was many years ago, Maka could still recall the impossibly vast amount of open space that sprawled out in front of her, how the red striated stone had snaked and curved in a grandiose display of geology. The air was laced with the scent of earth and pine.

When Maka opened her eyes again, she had to bite back a scream. Her feet were about a mile in the air. Below her, a chasm of stone yawned open like a hungry mouth. Naturally, Maka grabbed the nearest thing to her, which happened to be Soul.  _ Some help he’d be, he was already dead _ . 

“Hey, woah, we’re cool. It’s just a dream, remember?” Sure enough, gravity seemed to forget about the two and the sensation of falling never came. Still not letting go of Soul, she slowly pried open one eye. 

The dream-canyon wasn’t quite like she remembered it. The landscape was faintly red, but washed out, like a very old sepia photo. It was still beautiful, she thought. Far below them, a dark colored river snaked elegantly between impossibly large hills and plateaus. It shone blue-gray. Maka imagined in full color it must have been a vibrant emerald green. 

“Some ditch.” Soul sounded impressed. 

Maka let out a laugh that started uneasily but grew elated. She swung her legs in the air like a little kid on a swing. Still laughing, she told Soul, “Wow! I think I’m going to puke now.”

“Please don’t puke on me,” He pleaded, “Picture something else.”

Maka abided. Again, she closed her eyes. This time, she felt pavement manifest at her feet. 

When she opened them, the canyon was gone- they were at the top of a public stairwell. In front of them, a city spread out beneath the skyline with sleek and modern looking buildings. One red and white tower stood out, and beyond the city Maka could make out a snow-capped mountain- Tokyo. Like the Grand Canyon, this version of Japan was desaturated.

She didn’t really need to cling to Soul anymore, but she also didn’t feel any need to let him go. 

“Didn’t your mom grow up near here?” Soul asked.

Maka shook her head. “She never talked much about her childhood. She sent me a postcard from here once.”

They walked down a sidewalk a little ways, holding hands. The people they passed had their faces blurred out and moved slowly, as if they were walking through honey. The cars were at a standstill, but Maka supposed that wasn’t too unusual for such a densely populated city.

Maka slowed to a stop, looking at her shoes: black high heels. Her reflection stared back up at her. “These are all things we could have done,” She said, “I wish I could spend every day like this, but for real. I could’ve spent every day with you, y’know that? The fact that now you’re just teasing me with this… this  _ imitation _ is so mean.”

Soul looked at her with concern. He tried to tilt her face towards his, but she resisted, turning away. 

“I wish you were here for real. I wish I hadn’t made you leave.” Maka whimpered. They were back in the Black Room. 

Soul gave her a faint melancholy smile. “I  _ am _ here. You just need to wake up.”

When Maka opened her eyes, sure enough, she was the only one in her bed. A pit of disappointment opened up in her stomach, much deeper than the Grand Canyon. Wanting something really hard wasn’t the same as actually  _ working _ for it. 

If Maka was going to bring him back, she was going to have to do what she did best-  _ research _ .


	9. Don't ask questions you don't want answered.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Medusa's overdue library book.

Maka flashed her ID to the librarian. He was a big guy who spoke with a thick Boston accent and could have just as easily been a bouncer outside a hot city club. 

“Level four, eh?” The librarian read, mildly impressed, “What can I get you?”

“Actually, I was hoping we could browse ourselves.”

The librarian looked dubious. Level four was, after all, the highest clearance at this library. No paperback mystery novels or cheesy romance serials could be found there, and most people didn’t exactly go to “browse” dark arcane spellbooks. 

Maka cleared her throat and flipped her ID card over, showing a tiny stylized skull in the lower left corner- Death the Kid’s insignia. Anyone who had their card graced by the insignia was granted the utmost trust and respect (at least, within the DWMA’s library). 

The librarian clearly knew what it meant, sitting up quite a deal straighter. “Ah, my mistake, Ms. Albarn. Feel free.” He stepped out of the way of the dark corridor. 

“Thank you, sir!” Maka gave him a wide grin, stepping towards the corridor. 

Crona followed a few steps ahead, but just when they were about to pass, the librarian-turned-bouncer held out a beefy arm. “What’s this,” He grunted.

“They’re my plus one!” Maka held up her smile, a little forced now. It was all about confidence. Unfortunately, that was something Crona tended to lack.

“Not the kid,” the librarian growled, “ _That._ ”

Maka realized his gaze was trained to the ground at Ragnarok, who was four-legged and came up barely halfway up her shins. 

“I, uh,” Crona stammered, fiddling with their collar as if it were choking them.

“-That’s their emotional support animal!” Maka interjected, “They get _awfully_ nervous without him. Right, Crona?”

Crona, helpfully enough, looked awfully nervous. 

The librarian gave them a baleful glare, then he shook his head with something like disappointment. 

“It ain’t right. You really need to get your dogs from a reputable breeder, y’know?” He looked down at Ragnarok again, “French Bulldog, right? They can hardly breath outta their little faces!”

“He was a rescue,” Maka improvised quickly.

The librarian sighed. “Alright. Just… Just take it easy on the ‘lil guy.”

“Thank you, sir! Will do!” Maka grabbed Ragnarok with one arm and Crona’s shoulders with the other and pulled them past the librarian. 

“You owe me for not talking,” Ragnarok grunted. 

“How about as a reward you can run along to the comics section instead of looking at dusty old spell books with us?” Maka suggested. Setting Ragnarok loose on the library might have been a bad idea, but he’d been good lately, and she doubted any of the three would be particularly upset with the arrangement. 

“How about checking out the forbidden comic book section?” Maka suggested, “They say a  _ lot _ of bad words!”

Ragnarok huffed. “Forbidden comics are for babies. I only read forbidden  _ manga _ now.”

“I’m sure they have that too.”

Ragnarok seemed convinced and went on his way. 

The level four section, true to its reputation, was a path rarely traversed. Gothic arches held bookcases stuffed to the brim, every single book lining the shelves coated with a measurable layer of dust. As far as Maka could tell, there wasn’t any obvious method to the books’ organization. Books written in English mingled with books written in Latin or Arabic. Something titled _Clandestine Spells for Possession of the Mind_ had gotten cozy next to _Goosebumps: Ultimate Spooky Stories Vol. 8_. 

“Where do we start?” Maka mused aloud, half to herself. The echoing of her voice throughout the cavernous room wasn’t reassuring. There were a _lot_ of books, and for the first time in her life, she wasn’t stoked about it. 

Crona rubbed their temples as if they had a migraine coming on. “I’ve… I’ve been here before. When I first enrolled. M-she asked me to get books, sometimes.”

Maka frowned, concerned. She should have realized that the DWMA probably had some uncomfortable memories for Crona. “It’s not that important, we’ll look somewhere else-”

“No.” Crona’s voice was uncharacteristically firm, “She’s not a part of me right now.” Their tone returned to normal, “She wasn’t interested in necromancy. She always liked her prey live and fresh. But I think-I think she was curious, at one point… Back when she didn’t know how alive Asura was...” 

Crona crouched down, one hand to the ground. If the ground was moss instead of marble, Crona would’ve looked like some sort of pioneer tracking a deer or something. Maka was about to ask what they were doing when she noticed a faint yellow glow emerge from their fingers. Two lines, thin as hairline fractures, traced the outline of an arrow that wound into the depths of the room.

“Her vector arrow,” Maka realized, “I can’t believe it’s still active after all these years.” 

Crona suddenly sucked in sharply through their teeth and recoiled as if the arrow had been as hot as a stovetop. 

“Crona!” Maka grabbed them by the shoulders before they could topple onto their back.

“I’m fine. We should go.” They breathed. Maka let go, allowing them to get up shakily. The lights outlining the vector arrows were fading but still visible, but Crona was right: they had better hustle before they died out completely. 

The arrows lead them to a circular room with only one entrance. A round table sat in the middle, while behind it was a bookshelf with straight edges and a rounded top, like a giant tombstone. The shelves were relatively sparse compared to the rest of the library. Death City was more comfortable with the concept of ‘death’ than most populations, yet part of the beauty of death was the fact that the dead generally stayed dead. The permanence and inevitability was reassuring. Sacred, even. In an odd way, it made sense that necromancy was not in high demand. 

Maka picked up one of the books. “Resurrection for Dummies?” She read aloud. She flipped through a few pages curiously, glancing over helpful infographics of reanimating corpses with electricity, strange glowy potions, et cetera. 

Crona peered at the pages over her shoulder. “This won’t work.” They said, “This magic is for a different sort of dead. Much more dead than Soul is.”

“I didn’t realize there was more than one way to be dead.…” Maka said. She wondered if any of the books in front of her would make Crona’s words make more sense. 

“They’re right, you know.” Maka turned around to see a grinning face framed by bright pink hair.

“Kim, you snuck up on me.” Maka sighed, “Where did you come from?”

“Oooh, _around._ ” She said innocently. Knowing Kim, she’d probably either bribed or seduced the librarian to get into the restricted section. “Some light reading, eh?” Kim picked up one particularly sinister looking book, its spine decorated with the likening of a human spine. “This section seems adventurous, even for you, Maka.”

“I could say the same for you.”

Kim Diehl, in spite of being a tanuki witch, had a smile more like a cat- a grin that could be seen as either sweet or sinister. “Wondering what a witch like me is doing in a section dedicated to forbidden magic? Well first of all, there’s no such thing as ‘evil’ magic, just magic used with evil intent. Granted, even other witches sometimes have trouble distinguishing the two. When it comes to taboos like necromancy- well, take this-” She flipped to a page with an illustration of a blue-tinted corpse with its limbs outstretched, “A simple version of this spell could save dead, frostbitten limbs. With a little bit of tweaking, this type of magic could even help regrow a lost arm or a leg!”

Maka studied the book’s illustration with a newfound curiosity. “They teach you that sort of thing in nursing school?” She asked. 

Kim giggled, “Nope! This is all personal research- I’m sure you could have figured it all out yourself, though!” Maka knew Kim had a good heart, but also figured it would be wise not to pry on her “personal research” too much. Kim flipped to another page of the book, landing on a section with a disfigured looking skeleton, “Of course, there’s a reason this type of magic is forbidden. It’s easy to ask a person if they _want_ to have a couple of their toes reanimated. But an entire person? If their soul has moved on or can’t properly bond to the body, that’s a recipe for trouble. That’s how you get your mummies, ghouls, undead minions, and so on.”

Maka glanced at Crona, who nodded as if Kim were explaining why one plus one equals two.

The comment about souls stuck with Maka. Of course she knew about souls- generally they were found in living things and hung around shortly after their demise- some get eaten by demon weapons, of course, but the vast majority just… dissipate after a time. Even those that linger for a while generally seem to lose their _personhood_ , sooner or later. A soul lingering didn’t mean that its owner was still around any more than the still-beating heart of an organ donor. But if mind and body came back...

“What do you mean if a soul can’t bond to the body?” Maka asked. 

Kim wrinkled her nose, as if she found the question distasteful. “I specialize in regeneration, not full-on necromancy. Plus, I haven’t seen much about actually calling souls back from the beyond.” Kim gave Maka a wry smile. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess the esteemed Scythe Master herself was doing some personal research of her own.” 

Maka couldn’t find the words to justify herself. To her benefit, Kim seemed to notice her hesitation and gave her a nonchalant wave of the hand. “Hey, what you do on your time is your business, and I’m no gossip.” Maka looked at her. Kim relented, “Okay, I _might_ be a bit of a gossip, but it’s not like you and Soul have been that exciting since you got together. No love triangles, no accidental cheating on each other with long lost identical twins, what was there to even gossip about?”

Maka decided that being boring by Kim’s standards was probably a good thing. “Thanks.”

“There is one book missing.” Crona suddenly said, “It’s been missing for many years. I remember it now. It was about this thick,” They held their palms about six inches apart, “It had a snake winding around a dead tree on the cover. I always thought that’s why _she_ wanted it, but now I’m not sure. I-” Crona suddenly blushed, “I’m sorry, I interrupted you…”

Kim and Maka exchanged curious looks. Kim spoke first, “You’re saying you actually know about a spellbook that allows you to call back souls from the beyond? Well, color me impressed. It must have disappeared before we graduated from the DWMA.” 

“Go on,” Maka coaxed them. 

“Well,” Crona continued hesitantly, “the Tanuki Witch is right. It wouldn’t make sense to heal his body, or anything like that. I don’t think it would, at least. It’s his soul that’s behind a veil. If we could just get it closer, everything else will make sense.” 

“Well, sounds like a plan!” Kim said cheerfully, “For you guys, at least! I have homework. Have fun, you kids! Send me a selfie once you bring back your zombie boyfriend.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Maka echoed, but one thing still nagged at her, “But Crona, if you’re right… You know you’re going to have to go back to- well, to _her_ place.” Maka couldn’t quite bring herself to say _Medusa_ \- verbalizing her name next to Crona felt something like cussing next to a young child.

“Yeah.” Crona’s voice sounded small. 

~~~

Gnarled-looking trees twisted towards the night sky, their dark writhing forms black against the deep blue sky. The moon glowed an ominous white down on them- had it always been white? Not that it mattered. Maka hadn’t wanted Crona to come at all; she could handle this herself just fine. However, when Crona had mentioned the twisted road they’d be forced to walk, Maka didn’t have any good arguments for them to stay home.

She was grateful, now, as Crona diligently traced a path scarcely larger than an animal trail. It was barely visible through the fog that began to settle around them. Maka got the feeling Crona was going less by sight and more by some sort of inexplicable homing instinct.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the oddly shaped building loomed ahead of them.

“You’re staying outside.” Maka said. It wasn’t a question. 

“She’s always hiding something. She’s always got something up her sleeve,” Crona murmured ominously. Maka guessed it was their way of trying to stop her. 

Maka nodded. “I know. I won’t poke around too much, but she’s been gone for years.” And her killer was standing next to Maka.

Crona looked uncertain, but just dipped their head without saying anything else. Maka took this as her cue to approach the building. 

Maka had planned on slowly opening the door, but when she tugged on the knob, the hinges gave an ear-splitting shriek and the door toppled towards her. Maka would’ve been flattened if she hadn’t stumbled back in time, letting the door clatter loudly against cement ground. 

“Maka?” Crona called out.

“I’m fine. Just a building code violation, I think.”

Maka peered at the hinges- they were red with rust, curiously enough. Medusa had been gone a while, sure, but Maka didn’t think that her absence had been long enough for the building to get _this_ dilapidated. Maybe it had somehow been connected to her life-force with magic? That, or Medusa needed to hire a better contractor. 

The interior was quite sparse- the shelves had an odd, meager assortment of empty jars and scraps of paper. A blackened fire iron sat next to a hearth that hadn’t been lit in a long time. Maybe burglars or scavengers had cleared much of the lair out- that didn’t bode well for Maka. Hopefully whoever had emptied it out wasn’t much of a bookworm. 

Maka’s foot hit something hard. Momentarily, she was confused- when she looked down she saw nothing but spiraling stone tiles. Angling her flashlight just right, she realized that a narrow, curved section of the stone tiles were raised an inch or two above the rest, winding around the room until it hit a small vent close to the floor. 

_No_ , Maka thought, _that would be_ too _obvious_. Nonetheless, Maka took the bait. 

The grate of the vent let go of its hinges as easily as the front door had. The inside was black and, to her surprise, still exhaled a faint but certain flow of fresh air. She was half-expecting rats or roaches to scamper out, but the vent appeared clean and empty, if not a little dusty. Maka reached one hand deep inside. Sure enough, the skin of her palm touched hard, smooth leather. 

For a moment, Maka thought she felt a slight shiver from the house, but she must have imagined it. 

With both hands, she pulled out the book. Maka knew a thing or two about books, and this was certainly a book. Its thick, worn cover was embroidered with imagery true to what Crona had described- an ornate, gold-lined serpent wove around a dead tree as if it were a caudecus. Maka had to squint in the dim light to read the title. The letters belonged to the alphabet, but the language didn’t appear to be English, which certainly didn’t help things. Latin, maybe?

Before Maka had a chance to open the book, she felt another rumble. This time, it was too strong to just be a figment of her imagination. 

Maka gave the walls and floor another good look. The tiles she’d followed were a darker color. Off-color tiles extended to the walls, spiraling towards the dome-shaped ceiling. It almost looked like the tiles were moving.

No wait- they _were_ moving. 

Like some sort of twisted optical illusion, the darker tiles peeled off the wall and hovered in a shape that was distinctly serpentine. Far above her, Maka realized that the creature had a head- a crude, artificial approximation of a real snake with dull-looking eyes, but its teeth looked no less sharp. One of Medusa’s spells, no doubt, clinging to life- or something like it- long after its master perished.

Maka couldn’t see where the snake’s tail ended, only its body as it twisted around the room. It hadn’t attacked her yet- maybe several years of slumber had left it rusty, but as its head lowered to her level Maka realized it was coiling back to strike. 

The snake moved towards her in a blur and Maka acted on instinct, smacking its head with whatever was in her hands- which just so happened to be an ancient, priceless, startlingly heavy book. The snake’s head was sent reeling back, giving her some time. She was about to dash for the door when she realized it’s body, as thick around as an oak tree, blocked her only exit. 

Maka figured she shouldn’t make a habit of using books as her weapons. (At least, not _this_ book. All others were fair game.) She made a grab for the fire iron. It was about two feet long and pointy at the end. Maka could _almost_ pretend it was a real weapon, if not for the unmistakable lifelessness of the cold iron in her grip. 

The artificial snake had no facial expression, but Maka swore it looked pissed.

Her mistake was focusing on the thing’s fangs, forgetting the rest of its winding body. She felt a hard shove as the snake heaved a section of its torso against her, knocking her to the ground. Maka let out a curse as the snake’s head lunged towards her again. 

The snake was fast but luckily Maka was faster- with a grunt she thrust the fire iron into the monster’s mouth, pointing upwards through the top part of its skull. The point pierced the snake’s head as if the creature was made out of dry clay- fractures spread out through the entry point of the weapon and the better part of its face disintegrated into dust and chunks of rock. The rest of the body shuddered and slumped, looking once more like an avante-garde architectural fixture than a moving creature. 

Maka panted heavily, wiping dirt from her face. She wasn’t a fan of being covered in clay dust, but it was probably less disgusting than blood and guts if it had been a good old fashioned organic snake. 

“When you get to hell, tell Medusa I said hi.” Maka muttered. It sounded like a cool thing to say to a dead enemy, Soul probably would’ve been proud of her, wherever he was. 

The book seemed dusty but unharmed. Good. She grabbed it and made her way to the exit. 

Maka was ready to step over the snake’s headless body and leave the god-awful building behind forever when the aforementioned body slowly, deliberately, unfurled from the ground. Maka watched with horror as the headless neck jerked unnaturally, as if being pulled by an invisible string. Where the neck connected to the head, it began to split down the middle, changing shape until the neck forked in two. Eyes and jaws manifested on the stumps, looking every bit as new and dangerous as the head she’d just destroyed. One head opened its mouth, as if testing out its newfound teeth. 

Maka realized the snake wasn’t just a snake- it was a hydra. 

Maka scowled at the thing, more irritated than scared. Couldn’t _one_ thing in her life just stay good and dead for once?

Maka jolted out of the way as one head lashed at her, fangs glinting. Maka didn’t want to destroy it, lest the creature sprout a _third_ snakey mouth, but as head #2 bared its fangs from her opposite side, Maka realized she had nowhere to run and obliterated its skull with the iron. Sure enough, the hydra’s stump writhed while the remaining head pointed at her. For an animated creature with no thoughts, feelings, or soul, it looked thoroughly offended. 

Maka took its momentary hesitation to make a break for the door, struggling with the heavy book beneath one arm and the fire poker in the other. 

She managed to clear the open doorway in one piece, hearing the churning of snakey bodies behind her. Part of Maka hoped that Medusa’s creation was somehow tied to the building which it guarded, but no such luck. Three gaping jaws emerged from the doorway behind her. 

“Crona!” Maka called out, hoping that her friend was nearby. Crona had a real weapon, which might actually do something to damage the creature. 

Crona appeared from the shadows, fiddling with some paper. “Oh. Hello, Maka. You found the book. And you made some friends.” Maka wasn’t sure if they were being sarcastic, or if they were even capable of sarcasm. 

“I don’t think our new _friends_ like that we’re borrowing their book,” Maka gasped, “A little help?”

To her surprise, the three snake heads seemed to lose interest in Maka and regarded Crona with something that wasn’t overt hostility. Maybe they somehow sensed that Crona was the child of their old master. Crona murmured something Maka couldn’t quite make out, and the three heads u-turned back into their lair. 

Maka stared at Crona, baffled. “What was that all about?” She didn’t want to say it out loud, but Maka was shocked Crona hadn’t destroyed the creatures. They were a part, in some way, of the one person who had made their life a living nightmare.

Crona appeared to read her mind. “They didn’t want to hurt me. And they weren’t a part of _her_. I told them to leave us alone. They aren’t done with us yet, but if we fight them now there will only be more.” 

Maka squinted at them. That seemed wrong- Maka wasn’t a witch expert, but she doubted there were a ton of snake witches running around, let alone snake witches specifically going into Medusa’s secret lairs and planting their _own_ snakey monsters. 

“If you say so,” Maka decided reluctantly. She looked down at the book, the moonlight was plenty bright enough to make out the title. “ _Mortem Obire,_ ” She read out loud.

“To face death.” Crona translated. Maka didn’t know that Crona was fluent in Latin, but she’d first met them in Italy so that seemed fitting enough. 

“Kind of an ironic title, considering what we’re going to use it for.” Maka commented.

Crona shook their head. “We all face death. All of us eventually, magic or not. Even if everything works out perfectly, Soul will eventually die anyways. We’re only delaying the inevitable.”

On that cheerful note, they began on their trek back. 

~~~

Maka was glad to be back at her apartment. Really, it was nice to be in a building where the architecture wasn’t actively trying to murder her. Ragnarok might try, but right now he was curled up and dozing on the far end of the couch, looking almost cute. _Almost._

The ancient book took up about half of the coffee table. In the warm light of Maka’s apartment, she could make out every crease and intricacy of the tome before her. 

“Woah,” Maka breathed, awestruck, “This book has got to be _decades_ overdue.”

Crona didn’t seem to have an issue with this, skimming and flipping through the yellowed pages with ease. Maka caught glimpses of hexagrams and pentagrams and various other -grams more complicated than anything she’d seen in her old textbooks. 

At last, Crona landed on a relatively simple-looking page. Both sides of the spread had woodblock-printed images with text underneath, almost like pages from a storybook. 

“This should help us.” Crona said, “There was once a young soldier who lived with his wife. He was called away to fight, leaving the woman alone. She stared at the horizon every day and every night, eventually forgetting to eat or drink or even to sleep. She didn’t know that the soldier had been wounded in battle.” 

“At last, the young soldier returned home, but when he reunited with his wife, she wasn’t the same. She was alive, but her eyes were as empty as glass and her skin was as pale as porcelain. The soldier went to the local witch, hoping to rekindle what they once had. The witch told him he had until the next full moon to gather the woman’s brain, heart, and courage, and only then would his wife become herself again. The soldier searched the entire country, high and low, but he ran out of time and couldn’t save her. The witch was moved by the soldier’s efforts and took pity on the couple- she transformed the man into a poppy flower and the woman into a nightshade plant. She planted them both in her garden so they could be together forever. The end.” 

Crona put the book down and smiled at Maka, as if they’d just finished reading her a bedtime story. 

“Wow, Crona, that story was really…” Maka searched for the right word. _Sweet? Creepy? Depressing?_ “... Really something.”

Maka wasn’t sure what to make of the tale. Maka didn’t have a ton of experience with witchcraft, but she was expecting something more like a cookbook. A magical cookbook, with a list of ingredients and steps, just replacing words like “eggs” or “virgin olive oil” with “newts” and “the blood of virgins.” Granted, cookbooks with unnecessarily lengthy anecdotes weren’t exactly unheard of, but even those tended to have the recipes squished down at the bottom. 

Crona answered her question before she had a chance to ask it, “Sometimes stories like this have the answer hidden inside them.”

“Oh!” Maka could work with riddles, “So the witch in the story asked the soldier to find his wife’s brain, heart, and courage. So we just need to do that.”

“Before the full moon,” Crona added.

“Well, the moon’s always full now.” Maka pointed out. It’d been that way since Crona reappeared, at least. 

“That’s the most obvious answer…” Crona said cautiously. Maka sensed that there might have been a “but,” at the end of that sentence, but they didn’t continue. 

“So, we find Soul’s brain, heart, and courage.” Maka echoed, “Then I suppose we talk to our friendly neighborhood witch.” The most reliable witch she could think of was Kim. Maka didn’t doubt that the tanuki witch would turn down the offer- maybe she could turn the whole affair into a research paper for Nursing School. 

Crona gave a curt nod.

“We’ll start with his brain, since it’s mentioned first. Easy!” Maka said it so confidently it didn’t even occur to her that she had no idea how to actually _find_ a brain. Wouldn’t it still be in his head? Or, what was left of it, at least? If not there, what sort of weirdo collected brains, anyways?

“I know exactly where we’ve got to go.” Maka realized.


	10. Struck me like a Chord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka gets into a pickle.

Stein’s Lab was only a short distance from the cemetery. In most cities, people probably would’ve found it morbid to live a short stroll away from a field of departed souls, but to the lovely citizens of Death City, this was prime real estate. The concrete, brutalist building was a premiere specimen of postmodern brutalist-gothic architecture. Only the best for the renowned Professor Stein. 

“You seriously think we’re going to find a brain in here? A real, live human brain?” Ragnarok’s words oozed with barely contained ecstasy, “ _Gross!_ ” 

“Yeah, gross…” Crona didn’t quite match his enthusiasm, looking even more ashen than normal. 

Maka shook her head, “I doubt it.” _Although with Stein, you can never be too sure_. She pulled out a flat plastic card from her pocket- Soul’s old driver license. In the photo Soul bore a serious-looking expression even though really he was just trying hard not to blink, but what Maka was really interested in was the tiny red heart next to the headshot. “Soul was an organ donor. If it had been a regular old bike accident or something, we’d have better luck at a hospital, but Stein’s in charge of Supernatural Emergency Services. When magic and curses get involved, donations can be tricky so the best we’ll find is probably just paperwork, but it’s the most promising lead we’ve got.” 

“The professor’s awfully multitalented,” Crona observed. 

“When we find his brain can I touch it?” Ragnarok asked. 

“Absolutely not,” Maka said. The thought of handing the disembodied brain of her dead lover to Ragnarok, of all creatures, was not pleasant. Ragnarok deflated. The demon-sword looked so disappointed, Maka was almost tempted to buy some raw hamburger meat for him to play with on their way back home. 

“Looks like no one’s home,” Maka said, trying to squint into the dark windows. It was just past midterm season at the school, so Stein was probably shackled by the piles of tests to be graded. His wife Marie didn’t seem to be home either, and Maka doubted they’d leave their four-year-old to fend for herself. 

Maka scoured the building for weak points as they approached it. The windows appeared to be bolted shut. No spare keys under the welcome mat either. Just her luck that the smartest man in Death City was… well, smart. 

“Crona, can you still do that technique…” Maka thought back to a fight from many years ago, “ _Bloody needle_ , right? We might have to pick the lock.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.” Crona brushed past her, and to her dismay, swung the door open with one hand. Maybe Stein wasn’t as smart as she thought, at least when it came to home security. 

“That works too,” Maka decided. 

It had been a while since Maka had entered the lab. She recalled how foreboding the place had been when she’d first seen it; all endless gray halls and scientific instruments she wouldn’t dare identify. However, marriage had apparently softened the building’s interior design just as much as it had softened the man who lived there. Cheerful potted plants and decorative pillows popped against somber colors. There were a few toys strewn around: property of the youngest Stein, no doubt. A patchwork teddy bear caught Maka’s eye. She wondered if Professor Stein had made it for the kid himself, or if he’d seen the rough stitching on the stuffed animal and bought it to match his house. 

“He keeps his precious items in the cellar.” Crona said. “When I came here in my… past life. It’s the one place he wouldn’t allow Marie to tidy up, back then.” 

Maka looked down at the floor. No amount of cute decor could shake the tingling at the soles of her feet. She was not stoked to find out what “precious items” Stein may have kept in his basement, but she was unfortunately about to find out.

“Okay. Crona, Ragnarok, do you mind keeping watch up here in case someone comes back? I’m going to check downstairs.”

Crona’s eyes widened, “You’re going alone? _Again?_ ”

“Yeah, I can handle a few spiders, and I don’t think Stein’s the type to keep guard-hydras around.” Maka reassured them, “Just come get me if you see anyone.”

The stairway leading into the underbelly of the building seemed to stretch far longer than appeared possible judging by the size of its exterior. The entire hall was just slightly off, steps just a tiny bit slanted and bricks just a little too uneven, as if the construction crew had been drinking tequila when they built the hall. It was a subtle whisper that she wasn’t supposed to be there. Maka knew if she didn’t pay attention to where she stepped she’d trip and end up on the basement floor facefirst. 

At last, the hall spit her out in a chilly room with a concrete floor. Rusty looking instruments that could have been either medical appliances or medieval torture machines were piled up in one corner, too far for her to distinguish which of the two they were. Shelves lined the wall, floor to ceiling filled with glass jars containing liquid and floating... _things_. Maka wasn’t eager to look too close. At least none of them looked brain-shaped.

“Come on, filing cabinet. Just a normal boring old filing cabinet. That’s all I need…” Maka muttered to herself. The sound of her own voice was reassuring, at least. 

Maka bit back a yelp then something tiny and fluffy flew into her face. It was just a moth attracted to her phone’s flashlight, she realized after giving its airy body a swift _whack_ , but in her shock she took a step back and a particularly large jar threatened to tip over the edge. 

Maka let out one of Soul’s favorite curses as she lunged for the jar with the swiftness of a goalie. For a scary moment, her fingerprints struggled to find a grip on the smooth glass exterior as the sloshing liquid within threatened to throw the both of them off-balance, but at last she narrowly managed to save it. The jar felt unpleasantly cold against her grip. Forced to look through the glass, Maka observed an opaque amber-colored liquid suspending several long, warty green… vegetables. Stein had apparently been making _pickles_. Maka couldn’t help but let out a relieved laugh.

“I’m afraid you won’t be taking those.” A voice said behind her.

This time, Maka _did_ yelp, scrambling to narrowly avoid letting the pickles fall to their doom. 

“P-professor!” She stammered.  
  
Stein stepped in from an unseen corner of the cellar. “You know, as a former student of mind, you could have just sent me a text. Breaking and entering is a crime, as is vegetable theft. Although something tells me you’re not here for Marie’s preserves.” 

“Something, being?”

“Your friend, Crona.” _Tattletale_ , Maka thought bitterly, though it wasn’t like she was one to talk. At least Maka had the decency to feel ashamed, carefully replacing the jar and hanging her head.

“Maka, you won’t find what you’re looking for here.” Something in Stein’s voice sounded disappointed yet also sympathetic. She could almost imagine him being a father, for once. (Although her standards for fatherhood weren’t terribly hard to exceed) “Those preserves are not ready yet. You should know better. However, I would be more than happy to offer you some of Marie’s kombucha.” He put his hand over a rounded container of a bubbly brownish liquid that Maka was sure wasn’t potable. “It’s quite… tart.”

“No thank you, Professor. I shouldn’t have been sneaking around. But I did come here for something.”

“Always sneaking around. Like father, like daughter,” the Professor said nonchalantly. Maka scowled at the comparison. Stein continued on, “Although if you’re looking for a piece of our late Death Scythe Soul, I’m afraid I won’t be able to offer very much assistance.”

“I guess you’re going to say I’m crazy, too.” Maka said, dejected. 

“No, no.” Stein waved his hand, “I’ve reanimated far stranger creatures. Have you ever heard of a jackalope? There’s no thrill greater than creating a jackalope or two.”

“So, why won’t you help me? Crona and I found a spell that might work, if I just had the right ingredients. I need his… Well, _brain_.”

Stein tapped his chin. “Magic is a tricky business. Of course, there’s some magic to science and some science to magic, yet unfortunately, as far as necromancy goes, it’s slightly more complicated than combining baking soda and vinegar into a paper maché volcano.”

Casually, he strolled to another shelf, lifting to his face a small jar of what looked like kimchi. “Often, individuals will compare a brain to a computer, but in reality the two couldn’t be more different. If a computer is turned off, it can be turned back on. If the delicate balance of the brain is halted, even for a moment, you may lose the ability to move, speak, even think at all. Is that a life you would wish upon your partner?” 

Maka frowned. “Of course not. But you reanimated Professor Sid too, right? He has a great after-life.”

“Well, you see, Sid was as fresh as-” 

Maka interrupted him, “-As sashimi at a Kyoto fish shop, I know. But Soul isn’t _gone_ either.”

“Perhaps he’s only still present because you refuse to let him go.” Stein remarked, “Come upstairs.”

The first floor of the lab was well lit when Maka had re emerged from the staircase. Crona sat on the sofa, drinking orange juice out of a straw and staring intently at a laptop. They looked up at Maka. “Marie says hi. Stein said I could do a _Doom Call_ with her.”

“What happened to being the lookout?” She grumbled. 

Crona looked down at their drink. “Stein gave me juice…” 

“I see.” Maka hadn’t realized Crona’s loyalty could be bought with fruity beverages. “Stein, Could I have some, too, please?”

Stein looked slightly disappointed that Maka chose juice over kombucha, but he nodded, “Very well.” He disappeared into the kitchen. Crona waved goodbye to the laptop and shut it closed.

“So… No luck with his brain.” Maka caught Crona up. 

“Magic isn’t always literal. Especially when you interpret it from a story.” Crona told her, “Sometimes it’s less about thinking with your brain and more about thinking with your _mind_.”

“Crona, those are the same thing. A sound mind is a sound brain.”

Crona shrugged. “You _knew_ his mind.” 

Maka’s eyebrows furrowed. “So, something he thought about a lot? That’s no use, he’d always overthink things. That’s why the doctor prescribed him _Xanax_.” She looked at Crona, “Maybe we could use that.”

“Maybe.” Though they didn’t sound convinced.

Maka kept thinking. If magic wasn’t literal, what represented his mind? A diary? Soul didn’t keep one, at least not that she knew of, and somehow raiding his stuff felt wrong. She still hadn’t so much as opened his bedroom. Then, when it hit her, Maka wanted to slap herself for being so stupid: of course, _music_. 

~~~

A few years back, Soul had gotten an old vinyl record player. Maka had internally thought it was pretty silly- they had a perfectly good CD player and it’s not like the records sounded much different, but she’d come to appreciate its charm. Soul had kept a shelf of just a few of his favorite records in the living room. 

Maka flipped through the vinyls, admiring, not for the first time, Soul’s eclectic music taste. In her left hand, she held an album cover that looked like it predated her grandparents, adorned with an old-timey looking jazz musician and faded text reading _Cab Calloway Classics_. In her right hand, she held an emo-rock album depicting a blood-splattered couple that looked like they walked straight out of 2005. 

“Which one was his favorite?” Crona asked. They squinted at a _Billy Joel_ album. 

Maka shook her head. “I asked him once, and then he told me that picking a favorite album was like picking a favorite emotion. So I told him, my favorite emotion is probably joy. And then he said something like, you wouldn’t be able to experience joy without first knowing despair. So _pretentious_. I think he just got that line from a movie.” She tried to sound annoyed but really talking about it just made her miss him more.

“We could use _all_ of them,” Crona suggested.

“Knowing him, this is only a fraction of his… musical repertoire. I bet that drama queen would come back to yell at us for leaving something out.”

Even if Maka did know which album best encapsulated the essence of her deceased friend’s mind, she wasn’t sure what to actually do with it. Would they melt it down and put it in a cauldron? If it worked, Soul wouldn’t be stoked to find one of his precious vinyls had been turned into soup. Acceptable losses, she supposed.

“This one’s pretty.” Crona said. They held up a garishly colored album with “70s 4ever: Top Disco Hits!” in a cheesy neon magenta font. Maka remembered seeing the cover around but couldn’t recall Soul ever actually playing that one. 

Crona flipped open the album. Instead of a vinyl disk, they were showered in loose yellowing papers. “I-I broke it.” Crona sounded like they were on the verge of tears. 

“You didn’t break it,” Maka shifted over, grabbing the papers. 

They were riddled with creases and a bit fuzzy at the edges, like they were either quite old or handled frequently. She recognized Soul’s handwriting scrawled at the top. The paper she held had _COOL TUNES ‘09_ scratched in with a ballpoint pen. The rest of the paper was a mess of handwritten sheet music, and random notes or sentences that had no specific meaning to anyone but their dearly departed writer. One paper looked like it had a grocery list scribbled down in the corner, squashed between a couple lines of music and a doodle of a flaming skull. Soul certainly had a talent for filling up every square inch of paper. A lot of the writing looked less like legible symbols and more like his stream of thought, made physical.

“Straight out of his brain,” Maka said out loud, “Crona you’re a genius.” 

“Oh, okay.”

“Crona, what do we actually have to do with this? Do we put it in a cauldron, or…”

“I think the best we can do is capture its essence.” Crona mused. 

“So, we have to play one of his songs.” Maka guessed.

“Maybe, that would be its purest form.”

Maka shuffled the papers together as delicately as she could. She was certain this had to qualify as his “brain,” the only issue was that Maka could not read sheet music any better than she could read Arabic. Which was to say, _kind_ of but not really. That wasn’t even getting into actually _playing_ the damn thing- Maka would happily be the first to admit she didn't have a single musical bone in her body. 

~~~

Late that night, white keys glinted in the otherwise starkly black environment. The piano’s lid was already propped open, as if it had anticipated being played.

Maka placed the sheet on the rack. The years-old notebook paper looked humorously ratty up against the sleek wood of the somber instrument. 

“Oh yeah, that’s an oldie,” Soul confirmed. He scratched his head, looking almost embarrassed, “Was my handwriting really that bad?”

“Yes,” Maka confirmed, “Can you read it?”

“Sure, sure.”

She stared at him expectantly.

“I don’t think I can play it, though.” Soul told her, “It’s _your_ dream. If I did _all_ the work, that would sorta be cheating.”

“That’s great and all but I can’t _read_ music! You said it yourself, I have no musical IQ. And that’s even if I _could_ read your chicken scratch.”

“Maybe I could, uh, help out.” He hummed out a few notes. “Could you start with that?”

Maka experimentally tapped down on a key. Oh, that was a _low_ note. “No,” she said flatly. 

He rubbed his chin. “Almost. Here,” Maka felt his voice close to her ear as he slipped his hands over hers. He guided her fingers to the left, tapping down wherever the sheet dictated. Together, they played five or six keys in succession. “Could you do that, but faster?”

Maka did as he said. The tune came out clumsily when she attempted it on her own. It was probably because she wasn’t a very experienced pianist, and definitely not because of her urge to lean back and savor the warmth she missed so much. 

“Not bad,” Soul said, but Maka was pretty sure he was just trying to be optimistic for her sake. 

“It’s kind of funny. Usually it’s the other way around, with us.” 

“What is?”

“I mean, when we fight together, I’m the meister. I need to make the right plans, make the right moves, while you channel our strength. Right now, it feels like you’re my meister in a way, telling me which notes to play.”

“Huh, I guess that’s true.” 

Maka attempted to play the notes again. This time, they sounded smoother, if only by a little bit. Soul moved on to the next line. 

“It’s kind of hard being on the other side of the deal,” Maka admitted, “Not bad. Just… hard. Not that I don’t trust you, but not knowing what exactly to _do_? How can you stand to just go with the flow all the time?”

“Easy,” Soul said smoothly, “I know you’re always right.”

Maka stuck her tongue out at him. “Flattery won’t work on me when I know it’s not true. What about that time I picked that sushi restaurant for your birthday and we all got food poisoning?” 

Soul laughed. “Yeah, and thanks to that adventure I’ve learned an important lesson about eating raw seafood while three hundred miles away from the nearest large body of water: _don’t_.”

“I got food poisoning too, and I ordered the _chicken._ ” She pointed out. Her expression doured a little. “Plus, there are other things. It’s my fault you’re dead, anyways.” _It’s my fault you drifted away in the first place._

“If I _was_ dead, it wouldn’t be anyone’s fault but my own. I’ve told you that before, and I’ll tell you again if I have to. That’s my job as a weapon.” Soul tilted his head to meet her gaze, “I’m more worried about _you_ , right now, anyways.” 

Maka’s finger hit a sour note. Maybe dream-pianos needed tuning, too. 

“You can’t stay here forever,” Soul insisted, “When you leave, please just promise me you’ll wake up.”

“Already?” Maka said, startled, “We’ve barely gotten through a quarter of your song!” 

The tone of her dream shifted slightly. Soul was still there, feeling as real and alive as a person could feel, but something about the walls felt _off_. Maka got the strange sense that they were paper-thin, like she was in a house made of origami, and she didn’t want to find out whatever lay outside her fragile cube of comfort. 

Maka remembered her last dream and tried to imagine a new location: something more comfortable, more stable, than that damn Black Room, but it was like trying to remember how to breathe while submerged underwater. 

“I’m not ready,” Maka insisted. It wasn’t just about the song. Maka wanted to _talk_ to him. She wanted to talk to him about important things, of course, but mostly she just wanted to tell him about Crona’s antics and Stein’s basement full of kombucha and whatever other random thing came to her mind. Things she’d tell him if he were still alive and _here_ , anyways. There was never enough time. 

Soul gave her a smile that was both crooked and warm in the way only he knew how. “You’ll know what to do. You’re my meister, right? You’ve always got a plan.”

Maka wanted to deny it, but before she could open her mouth, she found herself in her bed, drenched in a cold sweat. It was still very dark out, but Maka wasn’t in the mood to dream anymore, not if she was only going to get ripped back to the waking world. 

Subconsciously, her fingers tapped against the mattress, echoing the motions from her dream. The sheet music lay on her desk. A song had wormed its way into the back of her brain, and on an impulse, Maka hummed out loud. She felt goosebumps on her neck- Soul’s song. _Of course_ , she’d heard it before. 

The next morning, Maka continued to tap her fingers on the counter, for fear that her memory of the tune would slip away. 

Crona straightened up in their chair while Ragnarok wolfed down some scrambled eggs and toast. “Something feels… different, today.” Crona commented.

“I think I cracked the sheet music, somehow.” Maka said.

Crona gave a little smile, “You must feel happy.”

Maka tilted her head. Was she happy? She supposed, in a way, she was a little happy. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t a thrill sneaking around the library and the woods with Crona. And it was nice to see Soul again, if only for a little while. It was certainly satisfying to think she was one third done with her quest.

“Yeah..." Maka realized, "I suppose I do feel happy.”


	11. One shot is never enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crona gets a foul for attempted murder.

Maybe the universe was smiling upon Maka that day, because when she set out her only intention had been to go to the grocery store to get a new thing of milk. Crona tagged along too, but after being overwhelmed by the eight hundred different brands of orange juice, they’d decided to wait outside. 

Maka and Crona were walking back to her apartment in broad daylight when she first heard the sound.

_Thump thump thump._

The beating of her heart was loud enough that Maka began to grow concerned for her health.

_Thump thump thump._

“Crona, do you hear that?” She asked. 

“Hear what?”

She put a hand to her chest, but everything felt pretty much normal in there. 

The thumping wasn’t coming from inside her as she’d previously thought, but rather was echoing within from a dark alleyway. Maka considered herself pretty familiar with the city, but its infrastructure was such that it wasn’t uncommon for even the most seasoned locals to find a previously unknown courtyard or stairwell. 

Such discoveries seemed random, but Maka was sure this one had appeared for a reason. She knew she traveled down this road a million times, but it seemed like this break in the street had manifested especially for her. 

“I think it’s coming from this way. I’m getting the same feeling as I did from the music!” _A beating heart_ , Maka was sure that’s what she was looking for. 

Curiously, she peered down the alleyway. Tall walls on either side with tiny curtained windows blocked the narrow street from the sun’s view, and a woven ceiling of ivy, laundry lines, and telephone wires criss-crossed above. The alleyway was slightly curved, so that Maka couldn’t see the end. Even though the thumping was quite faint, its source was certainly at the alleyway’s end. 

Maka broke into a light jog, startling a few pigeons as she made her way down the path. 

Aside from the occasional cricket, nothing particularly stood out about the path until she hit the clearing. The _thump thump_ grew louder, bouncing back and forth along the walls, until Maka didn’t realize it was a heartbeat at all. 

By the time she reached the courtyard at the end, Maka wasn’t alone. _Thump, thump,_ the rhythmic sound of a basketball being dribbled against pavement pounded against her ears. Black Star, face to the ground, momentarily stilled the ball. Without turning around, he tossed it over his shoulder, allowing the ball to momentarily skate along the rim of the hoop until finally taking a dive for the pavement once more. _Tha-thump_ , it landed, indulging in a bounce or two before obediently rolling to Black Star’s feet. 

At last, Black Star looked up. His solemn expression broke into a big toothy grin. “Maka! And company. ‘Sup?”

“Hey, Black Star! What is this place?” Maka looked around. It was a basketball court, but not the one she and Black Star usually frequented. The ground was a bit cracked, as if it had gone a few winters without maintenance. She realized that, unlike the alleyway, the court was otherwise only surrounded by a waist-high stone wall, with a beautiful vista of Death City and the desert beyond it. Maka thought that was curious, since she hadn’t felt herself go uphill in the alley, but she figured the court must have been built into a hillside. 

“It’s my secret dojo,” Black Star explained, “Tsubaki said if I want to be a big star, I should stop making kids cry when I smoke them on the B-ball court. She was right. It was annoying at first, but then I realized there’s only one worthy opponent of the mighty Black Star…” 

He kicked up the ball with the side of his foot, bounced it off his shoulder once and then his elbow, before letting it twirl on the tip of his finger. 

“ _ME!_ ”

To accentuate his point, he took a leap, kicking off of one of the surrounding walls, landing the ball in a slam dunk. _THUMP!_ It hit the ground particularly hard that time, Maka was almost worried it would fall off the cliff. When she really thought about it, a cliffside wasn’t the best location for a sport that involved a lot of flying projectiles. Maybe that’s why Black Star was the only one who bothered with the place. 

“So what brings you here? Need some pointers? You probably won’t get to my level, but you do have a lot of…” He looked her over, “...Room for growth.”

“I thought we could catch up,” Maka said, “Toss me the ball?” Black Star complied, throwing it to her. It wasn’t a standard basketball- instead of orange, the outermost layer of rubber was clear. Beneath it was a shiny texture, like iridescent tinsel- sort of turquoise and pink depending on how it hit the light. “I’m sure you’ve heard, but Crona’s in town.”

Crona waved meekly from the corner. 

Black Star shrugged as Maka dribbled the ball. “Doesn’t bother me. Also, you’re supposed to dribble with only _one_ hand.” Maka corrected herself as Black Star continued, “A true warrior doesn’t care about the past, it’s the present that counts! Of course, if they turn out to be _evil_ in the present...” He made a cartoonish slicing gesture over his throat. 

“I’ll be sure to keep an eye on them,” Maka deadpanned, “though it’s actually been really nice to have them around.” Maka attempted to toss the ball into the hoop, but missed by about a mile. Man, she was rusty. 

“I’d go crazy if I lived alone. What good’s a star if no one sees him shine?”

They practiced a bit more. Maka realized she was dribbling far too hard- Black Star, of all people, was teaching her finesse. When she aimed for the hoop, she had a hard time taking her eyes off the ball. The iridescent colors swirled hypnotically. 

“Hey, Black Star. Do you mind if I borrowed this ball?”

“What, why?”

“Practice.” 

Black Star folded his arms, “Look, if you want a ball with my _autograph_ on it, you can be honest. I could grab you another one from my place, but you can’t have _that_ ball. It’s special. It was a birthday gift!”

“Is that so? I could bring it right back.”

Black Star’s grin dropped by a margin. “You know who gave it to me, then. Like you don’t have enough of his stuff already? He was _my_ friend, too.”

“It’s not like that-” Maka wasn’t sure how far she wanted to go into the whole affair, Crona’s magic spell, the riddles, et cetera. Black Star would probably fall asleep halfway through her explanation. “I only need the ball long enough to see… Well, to see if I’m right about something.”

“Hmph. I didn’t want to say anything, but Tsubaki’s worried about you, you know. She’s sensitive to stuff like that. I don’t think you’re right in the head, either. Like I said before, true warriors live in the present, not the past!”

“If you live in the present, why are you so obsessed with keeping that ball.”

“He would’ve wanted me to dunk hoops with it. I heard that was the last thing he ever said. I’m only respecting the wishes of the deceased. Also, it shines bright, just like me.”

“How about a bet?”

He glanced at her. “Against me? You’ll lose. What is it?”

Crona began to stand up but Maka lifted one hand. “ _One-on-one_ streetball. First to twenty-one. If I win, _I_ get to keep the ball.”

Black Star actually laughed, loud enough so that it echoed down the alleyway from which Maka came. “Feeling lucky today? That’s the spirit. And _when_ I win, you’ll get a facial tattoo that says, _Black Star’s #1_ ”

“No,” Maka said flatly, “but I can sharpie that onto my hand for a couple days.”

Black Star cracked his knuckles, “Crona, you referee.”

“B-but I don’t know the rules...” Crona protested weakly.

Black Star ignored him, apparently not seeing this as an issue. He continued on, “Normally we’d flip a coin to see who plays offense first, but I’m feeling pretty generous today so I’ll let the guest go first.”

Maka dribbled the ball, her determined frown meeting Black Star’s cocky smile. 

Maka made a false dart to the left and Black Star took the bait, lunging at her, but he only met concrete when she ducked to the right last-minute. Stepping past her opponent, she made her way to the free-throw lane and took a shot. It was messy- the ball bounced up against the edge of the hoop, but ultimately it made it in. Maybe Maka wasn’t as rusty as she thought.

Black Star gave a good-natured chuckle. “Great, you know how to throw a ball. Now the _real_ fun begins.”

It turned out that Black Star wasn’t just bullshitting. His lazy grin was replaced by something more determined, more aggressive, as they stepped into the court’s center. This time, he started with the ball. Crona, from their corner, said something like “Um, you can start now,” the blue-haired terror was gone almost as fast as Maka could blink. 

She reeled around just in time to see him take a gnarly shot from the three-point line, crossing his arms smugly as the ball obediently made its way through the hoop.

The rest of the game pretty much followed suit. When Maka played offense, she barely could dribble for more than a moment before the ball was swiped away. When it was Black Star’s turn, she could pretty much only run after him only to watch helplessly as that stupid ball made yet another glimmering arc through the air and into her hoop. 

“ _Aw yeah!_ ” Black Star pumped his fist victoriously, “Nineteen to one, home’s in the lead!”

Maka tried to mentally tap into one of those cheesy sports movies. Didn’t the underdog always win, or something? She wasn’t sure- she watched High School Musical once as a kid, but beyond that, neither she nor Soul were much into the genre. 

Maka gave Crona a desperate look.

“U-uhm!” Crona stood up, shaky as a newborn fawn, “Red card?”

Black Star snorted. “Wrong game. Jeez, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you don’t even know the rules of streetball.” Crona did not, in fact, know the rules of one-on-one streetball, but Maka didn’t say anything. 

It was Maka’s turn to play offense again. Her heart, for real this time, pounded rapidly against her ribcage and her palms felt sweaty against the nylon of the ball. Black Star sneered at her. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. In fact, she was going to make this way harder than it needed to be.

When Crona called, “go,” Maka hopped back, narrowly avoiding Black Star’s steal. She was about to make a break left of the guy. Black Star saw it coming, but apparently, like he said before, his greatest opponent was himself. He overestimated a grab for the ball and ended up tackling Maka, sending them both reeling. “ _Hey!_ ” Maka gasped. Even though Black Star wasn’t especially tall, he was built like a rock and being tackled by him certainly felt like getting hit by one.

“Oh! U-uhm!” Crona stammered.

Black Star got up off her, dusting himself off. “My bad,” He muttered, not sounding particularly apologetic. Maka sat up to see Crona pick up and desperately scrolling through the phone she’d left on the bench.

“According to this website,” Crona said, “that’s a foal.” 

“A foul?” Maka asked.

“Yeah.”

Black Star grunted, annoyed but not having an argument against his mistake this time around. “Maybe if you weren’t so _bad_ at basketball, and standing up...”

It was a lame insult, but Maka still bristled at it. “Save it. I get a chance at a three-point shot.”

Maka stepped to the three-point line and faced the hoop. Suddenly, it looked like it was miles away. “C’mon, Soul, please…” It was silly, but she whispered to the ball. If it really _was_ his heart, maybe some tiny part of him would listen and cut her and her lacking basketball abilities some slack. “I don’t mind if you want to leave me when all this is over, but just _please_ don’t leave me for Black Star.” 

“What was that?” Black Star shouted from afar.

“Nothing,” Maka replied. She squinted at the hoop. 

She crouched down. She shot. And… true to form, she missed by about a mile. 

Maka let out a loud curse while Black Star cackled loudly, his laugh echoing around the small court. 

“Black Star, I mean it! Just let me have the ball!” Maka was painfully aware of the fact that she sounded like a toddler throwing a tantrum, but she wasn’t sure what else to do. 

“Don’t be such a sore loser.” Black Star chided her. 

“Why don’t you give me the ball, and…” Maka’s shoulders slumped in resignation, “I’ll... get the facial tattoo that says _Black Star’s #1_ ”

Black Star grinned. “Hah! A white flag! Another foe quivers before Black Star. It’s too late though, Maka, we already made a deal, and I never show mercy. You’ll go down fighting like a _man_.”

Maka didn’t particularly want to do _anything_ like a man, but as much as she hated it, Black Star had a point. She’d honor her deal. Maybe she was wrong about the ball being Soul’s heart. Maybe she’d find some other way. Maka mentally prepared herself to play defense and suffer another crushing defeat, when something strange happened. 

Black Star had been holding the ball in his right hand. _Had_ been, because a streak of pure black cut through his arm a moment later.

“Black Star!” Maka’s determination gave way to horror. 

Black Star watched his arm fall off with something like confusion. Then anger. There was no blood, nothing, it just popped off as cleanly as if he’d been a crumbling mannequin. The ball bounced out of his now-disembodied hand. 

“Now _that’s_ a foul.” Black Star growled. 

Behind Maka, Crona loomed with a familiar black sword in their hand. Maka had no idea where Ragnarok had come from, but at the moment she didn’t care. Their expression looked as ominous as Maka had seen it ever since they returned. Maka tried to mask her fear.

“Crona, _no._ ” Her voice was firm. 

Hesitantly, Crona lowered Ragnarok. When Maka turned to her newly-amputated friend, his face looked wrong. Not twisted in pain or anger, but almost blank, as if it had been painted on at one point and now the paint was chipping away. 

Not-Black Star examined his stump as if it were a minor inconvenience. His entire body jerked suddenly, as if he’d been electrocuted. When he unfurled once more, two arms folded out from where the one arm had been removed. Three fists clenched. 

Maka was still upset with Crona, but now she had other things to worry about.

“We should probably go,” She said. 

Maka didn’t need to say it twice. She reached for the ball and the not-Black Star didn’t make an effort to halt her progress.

The thing that looked like Black Star didn’t bother to chase them as they left it behind in the court. Maka wasn’t sure if that made her feel better, or all the more terrified.

~~~

Nothing overtly bad happened to Maka between the alleyway and the apartment. 

Nothing bit her, stabbed her, cut her, or even tried to trip her, which was frankly refreshing.

So, why did it feel like scorpions were crawling up her spine?

Well, the answer was obvious. The thing that she thought was her friend turned out to be some sort of abomination. A monster. Like the hydra she’d narrowly escaped, where Black Star’s limb crumbled to dust, two had spring in its place. That didn’t disturb her as much as the cool apathy that was so un-Black Star appeared on his face. 

“Did you get hurt?” Crona asked. 

Speaking of unnerving friends, Maka thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.

“I’m… I’m okay.”

“Okay.” Their hands shuffled over Maka’s singular grocery bag. Maka realized she must have left it at the court. How thoughtful of them. She didn't notice that the bag looked too full to just have the milk in it. 

“I- I need to go to my room for a second,” Maka stammered, “I think there should be some cereal or something if you’re hungry.”

“Okay.”

They stared at her blankly until Maka felt like an ant under a magnifying glass. “Okay,” She echoed, and shuffled towards her room. She cast a longing glance at the bedroom door across from her own. Soul always knew what to say when Black Star got into trouble. He would’ve known what to say when Black Star grew a third arm, too.

But Soul wasn’t here, and he didn’t have anything to say. 

Maka reluctantly shut her door and flopped onto her bed. For what could have been thirty seconds or thirty minutes, she stared at her ceiling. When she stared at one point in the stucco pattern, the texture almost seemed to swirl hypnotically- a stucco ocean. Maka blinked and the ceiling was just a ceiling again. Maybe she wasn’t getting enough sleep. 

Maka wanted to think she was most disturbed by not-Black Star. But when she replayed the events in her head, the scene that made her hackles rise wasn’t Black Star, but rather, the arc of dark metal that had shattered him. 

She’d been on the bad end of that sword before. Or more accurately, Soul had. 

Crona didn’t mean to do it then. They were a child! A tortured, manipulated child that didn’t know anything else. 

Maka had already forgiven them for it long ago. But now that Soul was gone, for some reason, the memory became even harder to bear. 

Maka nearly jumped out of her bed when she heard the soft knock. 

“Come in!” She forced some cheerfulness into her voice and made a scramble for a nearby novel: anything to make it look like she was relaxing and not contemplating morality. 

“I thought you maybe wanted this,” Crona said meekly. They held the basketball which glinted weakly in the dim light of Maka’s room.

“Oh.” Maka lowered her eyes. “Thanks.” She’d forgotten about the ball, which was kind of troubling considering it was the heart of her dead beloved. 

“You’re not happy,” it was a statement. 

“Not really.” Maka admitted. Crona gave her the ball, which she put on her lap and hugged to her chest. It felt oddly reassuring. She hesitated for a second, then spoke again, “Did you know that Black Star wasn’t himself?”

“Are you unhappy because your friend wouldn’t help you?” Crona asked, “The real one might have been more helpful. I’m not sure.” 

“You just... Do it so easily,” Maka muttered.

Crona tilted their head, not understanding.

“The way you just _cut_ him.” Maka continued softly. She stared at the ball. 

“It was only painted to look like your friend Black Star. The real one was never there.”

Maka wanted to ask, _if it had been the real Black Star, would you still have hurt him?_ But deep down, Maka knew the answer, because Crona _had_ done it before. Maka wanted to hope they wouldn’t have done it again. 

“I liked Black Star.” Crona said, suddenly. “He was loud. But not too mean. If you see him again you can tell him that.” 

Maka didn’t think they said that to make her feel better. Crona wasn’t the type to lie in that way. The image of Ragnarok’s sword clung to the back of her mind, but Maka just exhaled through her nose. 

“I will,” she finally said. 


	12. I can be your reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violent video games are proven to make Ragnarok violent.

Crona shifted on the couch in front of the TV. They curled their gangly legs up in front of them and leaned on the far side, making themselves as small as possible. It felt nice, that way. It felt nice knowing that Maka was in the other room, probably quietly reading a book or something. Meeting her loud blue friend earlier that day had been less nice, even though Crona knew that he wasn’t real. Sometimes fake things were worse than real ones. 

The TV didn’t have anything good on. When Crona pressed the remote with one tentative finger, it would change to static. When they pushed again, it would change to static, but brighter or darker or more colorful. A hundred different flavors of static. Not entertaining, but oddly comforting. It passed the time, anyways.

Crona shifted again. Something was missing. 

They rubbed their eyes. No pain. No headache. Yes, that was certainly abnormal, usually Crona was in at least a little pain. Then it hit them: Ragnarok was gone.

Crona wasn’t sure how to deal with being split from Ragnarok. Crona could read, write, stare out the window, whatever without the sensation of a very loud and obnoxious presence peering over their shoulder. Yet with newfound privacy came vulnerability. Many hours later, their index finger still faintly throbbed from beneath a bandage. What was next? A papercut? Stubbed toe? Beesting? Being a regular(-ish) human was so very, very dangerous. The thought of those horrible fates made Crona whimper and rug their knees tighter into their chest, full fetal position. 

But Ragnarok was gone, which was very strange. Gone from the apartment, not just from Crona’s blood. Knowing Ragnarok, he wasn’t just going for an innocent midnight stroll, either. 

Crona slumped. They probably had no choice but to get up and find Ragnarok before he caused too much trouble. Maka would probably get mad if he ate the 24-hour drugstore cashier or graffitied too many traffic signs. Well, fine, Crona would go outside alone to look for him and probably die a terrible death, but at least they’d go down as a martyr.

Even though Ragnarok was physically separated from Crona, their bond wasn’t totally out of the woods quite yet. When Crona thought _Ragnarok_ , they’d feel a slight tug, like the needle of a compass, telling them where the demon sword was. 

Sure enough, a looming black shape stood in the lonely glow of the 24-hour mart. Human-ish, but not fully human. Too bulky. More like a gorilla. His back was turned towards Crona.

“Ragnarok, it’s close to our bedtime.” Crona said. "You shouldn't be out so late."

“We don’t have a bedtime, stupid. We’re not babies!” Ragnarok snipped at Crona, but didn’t turn to face them. 

“What are you doing?”

“ _Nooothing._ ” Ragnarok said innocently. He shifted his weight, revealing another figure in front of him. It was a human. Some man, an unremarkable balding guy. He might have been middle aged, but it was hard to tell. Crona was never all that good with faces, but they got the feeling that even if they were, the man in front of them was about as forgettable as they came. He had a glazed look in his eye, seemingly not aware of either of them. Ragnarok raised one huge, hairy fist.

“Ragnarok, _no_!”

Ragnarok didn’t pay Crona any heed, and brought his fist down with the force of a meteor. Crona thought they knew what would happen next. Crona had seen it plenty of times before. But, whatever they were expecting, didn’t happen. The man’s image distorted and flickered until his skin turned gray-black and he evaporated into a puff of mist. 

“Ragnarok!” Crona scolded, “You can’t just _kill_ people whenever you feel like it. We’ve talked about this.”

“Relax, twerp, he’s not dead. Watch.”

Sure enough, the smoke wove itself back together and the man reappeared, good as new. He didn’t seem to notice or mind the fact that Ragnarok’s hairy ape fist was still embedded in his shoe. 

“Eh..? Pardon me, son…” The man spoke in monotone, as if he was in a trance and didn’t move. 

Ragnarok burst into laughter, barely able to contain himself. “ _Ha!_ It gets better every time! _Pardon me_ \- pffft!” He turned to Crona, “It’s like a video game!”

Crona frowned. Killing people was considered to be very rude, but this old man didn’t seem to be terribly upset over it. 

“I’m sorry my weapon keeps killing you. Please accept our apology.” Crona walked up to the old man and gave a quick bow before grabbing Ragnarok’s arm and tugging him away. Ragnarok complied, or he was laughing too hard to put up a good fight. 

They walked to the end of the block before giving Ragnarok an angry glare. “Ragnarok, we shouldn’t be doing these sorts of things anymore. Things are different now.”

“You think I’m stupid or something?” Ragnarok asked. Wisely, Crona refrained from answering. Ragnarok continued, “I know your dumb girly has her dumb rules like, _no elbows on the table_ , _no murdering people_ , blah blah. But even _I’m_ not stupid enough to give up free room and board.” He scoffed, “That guy didn’t count. He doesn’t even have a soul. None of them do.” Ragnarok smiled eerily. “I know you can sense it too.”

Crona looked back over to the man, still standing there, like a forgotten prop from a stage play left to gather dust in the backroom. He’d talked and moved, but he was about as alive as an actor on a tinny television screen. 

“This whole place is a big _video game_ . We can do whatever we want. No Grim Reaper, no _Lady Medusa_ telling us what to do.” Ragnarok fidgeted giddily. “You can do whatever you want, too. You’re just too much of a scaredy-cat.”

“We just saw the Grim Reaper a few days ago. He just got…” Crona looked for the right word, “Shorter.”

“That wasn’t the Reaper. You’re stupid but you’re not _that_ stupid, twerp. Quit acting dumb.” Ragnarok reached out, jostling Crona’s head with his big meaty gorilla hand until they ducked away with an indignant huff.

“I know, I know. But we’re not here to play around, we’re here to help Maka.”

“Maybe girly’s here to help _us_ , ever thought of that? Huh?” Ragnarok crossed his arms. “I’m sick of being on the moon all the time. There’s nothing to do. Asura used to be so _cool_ but now he’s just a big dumb baby. He doesn’t even remember eating all those people, _what else is there to talk about?_ ”

“We don’t live on the moon for fun.” Crona pointed out.

“ _I_ never got to decide. I got in trouble for some dumb thing you decided to do, just like I always do. Locked in a room, locked in a dungeon, locked in the moon. I’m _sick_ of it!” Ragnarok took a moment to pout before giving Crona a sly look. “But you’re like me, too. You’re selfish. You _like_ being here.” Ragnarok suddenly sat up as if he’d had an epiphany, “You’re not dumb, you’re a _genius!_ ”

“What do you mean?” Crona asked, not entirely sure they wanted to know the answer.

“You play your girl’s little game, believe all her little lies she tells herself. And, well, think about it! It’s paradise! I get to have fun and squish as many fake peoples’ heads as I want, you get to hang out all day with your only _friend!_ No _real_ people to worry about. And the funniest part is, she’d never suspect a thing!”

“Her… game.” Crona echoed.

“It’s our dream come true.” Ragnarok said whimsically. “Literally! Well, _her_ dream, more like it. You’re not a Kishin anymore. She never could see you that way, dumb idealist. And she thinks I’m an animal” He stuck his tongue out in a sadistic hellhound’s grin, “She’s right about that much, heh.”

Crona knew all along. Or, they thought they knew. Death City was a mirage, a playground cooked up by some strange mix of magic and subconscious fear. Crona thought that Maka knew, too. Maybe she did know. Should they tell her?

“It’s-it’s not like that. You’re making it sound like we’re taking advantage of her.” Crona rubbed their arm nervously. It felt _wrong_ , somehow, that Maka didn’t know. 

“Sure, sure. I know you’re pretending to help her find her weird-looking boyfriend. Not like you can find him here, anyway.” Ragnarok waved his hand, “Besides, I think they _both_ could do better.”

Crona may have hesitated a bit too long, because Ragnarok let out another ugly cackle. “See, you _want_ to stay here, too! You’re just as selfish as I am! It’s a good deal. The sooner you admit it the better off you’ll be, loser.”

“It’s not true,” Crona said, but Ragnarok had become bored with them and the old man and sauntered off to raid the drug store’s candy aisle.

“It’s not true…” Crona repeated, but no one was around to hear it but Crona themselves.


	13. The deeper I get, the less that I know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ragnarok makes an ass of himself.

The morning Maka and Crona went to Hook Cemetery was mild. Sunlight pooled, warm but not hot. A gentle breeze ruffled the golden grass, whispering enticingly as they walked past.  _ Beautiful _ , Maka thought. How poorly fitting.  _ Read the mood, weather _ . 

They walked past Professor Sid’s grave. It had a little sign hung over the top that said  _ Gone Teachin’ _ . As far as she knew, Sid was the only corpse who took vacations. 

“So, remind me why do we have to go to this dump again?” Ragnarok complained.

“You don’t  _ have _ to be here,” Maka reminded him, “I think we’d actually all be happier if you went… somewhere else.”

“Don’t tell me what to do! Now I  _ do _ want to be here.” He snapped. 

“Backtracking.” Maka said.

“Huh?” Crona and Ragnarok both looked at her.

“It’s like when I’d misplace your keys, the trick to finding them again is to just try to remember the place you realized they were missing and just retrace your steps. Easy!” Maka said it so optimistically, she almost believed herself.

Maka’s eyebrows furrowed. “We need to find his courage, but we don’t really know what that means at this point. Maybe if we retrace his steps we’ll find something.”

“Sounds dumb,” Ragnarok yawned.

“Like you’re so great with ideas,” Maka snapped back. 

Soul’s headstone was easy to spot; the simple black rock was an island in a sea of colorful roses and various gifts. The flowers were all fresh, not a single petal wilted. On an impulse, Maka plucked a rose and took a whiff. It smelled nice. Perfumey. Soul probably wouldn’t have minded if she’d taken it, he had so many already, but she put it back anyways.   
  
“So is this the last place you saw Soul?” Crona asked.

Maka shook her head a little. “Not exactly.” She admitted. “I was at his funeral service, but I never actually  _ saw _ … you know-” She swallowed, “What was left of him. But I mean, this is as good a place to start as any.”

“Oh.”

Maka knelt down, resting her hand on the grass. Brittle and yellow, it snapped at the slightest pressure, leaving the dry stems to poke into her hand. The ground directly beneath her was loose, dry dirt. There was no way Soul could be beneath her feet. She’d feel something- anything- right?

She looked around. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure what she should be looking for. Her Soul Perception was no good- when she closed her eyes and extended her sixth sense, all she could detect were her two companions. When Maka opened her eyes again, the only sign of life was that of a small striped beetle crawling its way up Soul’s headstone. She flicked it away.

“This is lame. Now what?” Ragnarok asked.

Maka tried to recall what had happened before the funeral service. Surely something led up to that dreary event, but it was like trying to recall a dream or a memory from when she was very small. When she tried to recall specific places or sensations, all that came up were vague feelings. 

“Um,” Maka tried hard to think, “He might have gone to urgent care.” After he was injured, there must have been a rig to get him. Or was it a helicopter? Maybe he hadn’t gone to the ER at all, maybe he’d been proclaimed dead on site. Kid had been the one to come to their aid, and if anyone was qualified to play coroner for a day, it was the Death God himself. 

“Not urgent care.” Crona said, as if in a trance. They came to, and quickly corrected themselves, “I-I mean, we can go if you want. But I don’t think we’re ready to go there yet. He didn’t go to urgent care after the fight.”

Maka tilted her head, “How do you know that?”

“Oh, you know. Moon vision.”

Maka felt deep down in her gut that they were right. The hospital wasn’t important right now. They would have to go to the last place she’d seen him decidedly living and breathing- the ghost town. 

The three of them made their way down to Maim Street. Any other town would’ve probably just called it “Main Street,” but either the city developer had dyslexia or they were way too into theme naming. Maka hadn't even noticed it was weird until Soul, who was not a Death City native, pointed out how lame the pun was.   


“Wait here for a minute,” Maka told Crona and Ragnarok, “I’m going to look for a cab.” 

The streets were fairly populated, but free of noise and commotion, as if everyone was talking in a hushed voice. Cars inched forward at a snail’s pace, outpaced by even bikes and scooters. At last, Maka found what she was looking for: a black and white checkered sedan with the words “DEATH CAB” printed on its side. 

The front windows were tinted so Maka couldn’t quite make out the driver, but when she hailed it over it veered towards the curb. She hopped into the back seat.

The inside of the cab wasn’t the inside of a cab. 

Maka was sitting on an ornate black chair. Stark white walls and high ceilings surrounded her. The floor beneath her feet was immaculately polished marble. A long white dinner table stretched out before her, and somehow she wasn’t surprised to see Death the Kid sitting on the other side.

He spoke first. “Unfortunately, you cannot leave. Tea?”

“What?” Maka frowned at him, incredulous. 

Kid nudged his head down. Maka realized there was a cup of piping hot tea sitting in front of her.

“No thanks, I’m okay.” She said. 

Kid shrugged, unoffended. The teacup disappeared, blinked out of existence as if it had never been there to start with.

“What do you mean I can’t leave?” Maka pressed. Her fists clenched of their own accord, unsure of what game the teenage Grim Reaper was playing. 

He regarded her defensiveness with his cool gaze. “It is not my executive decision, mind you. Have you not checked the weather? Sandstorms are picking up from Nevada to Arizona. California’s on fire. And Utah, well, of course we’ve been trying to avoid Utah ever since the  _ incident _ , I’m sure you recall. No buses or cabs in or out of Death City, at least for the remainder of the week.”

“Seriously? It’s been clear all day.”

Kid slowly turned to the high windows that lined the room. Maka followed his gaze. The sun was obscured by a blanket of dark gray clouds, as if a monsoon had been approaching. 

“I… I guess I hadn’t noticed.” Maka managed. This morning it had been sunny, hadn’t it? Maybe she hadn’t noticed storm clouds looming on the horizon. Or maybe they’d always been there, she’d just forgotten.

“All is well,” Kid said graciously, “Though I’m sure you must sense it too. Trouble awaits, it would be best to simply rest for the time being. Tea?”

Maka stared down at the teacup in front of her. Amber-colored liquid reflected a cloudy, overcast sky. Startled, Maka looked up. Thick clouds were where the ceiling should have been. Maka realized she was outside again, stepping out of the cab and onto the street while it drove away behind her.

Crona and Ragnarok sat on a city bench, fighting over a candy bar they must have gotten from a vending machine, acting like nothing had just happened.

“Oh, hi.” Crona looked up, temporarily letting their guard down just long enough for Ragnarok to swipe the candy bar with his teeth. Unperturbed, Crona looked around. “Did you find the taxi?”

Maka didn’t answer them right away. Wordlessly, she grabbed their wrist and took some experimental steps down the street, towards the exit of Death City. None of the other pedestrians actively stopped her, but he noted that their hushed conversations stalled. When she caught glimpses of their faces, they looked… off. Not obviously wrong, just off. She looked at one woman who might have been in her thirties, and Maka realized that she couldn’t even tell what her eye color was. When Maka looked away, she couldn’t even remember what the woman’s face had looked like at all. 

A creeping sensation made its way up Maka’s neck. She didn’t like this. Too many eyes on them. Maka wasn’t sure what it meant, but she couldn’t shake the image of the fake-Black Star from her mind.

“M-Maka?” Crona looked worried. Well, more worried than normal, “The cab?”

Maka shook her head. “We’re going to have to walk.”

~~~

Soul’s bikes sat in the garage, lonely and neglected. They clearly missed their owner as much as Maka did.

His old orange bike he’d had since he was a teenager was sandwiched between the wall and his motorcycle, a slick navy blue vehicle that looked new save for the missing rear tire. Soul had tried to teach her how to ride the orange bike once. For a second, things had been perfect- Soul sat directly behind her, helping guide the bike’s path. She’d felt warm and safe with him behind her and the wind in her face. Sure, she’d ended up breaking some pedestrian’s leg, but it was fun while it lasted.

Her own poor biking skills aside, it would be disappointing to find Soul alive, only to have him die of a heart attack upon realizing she got a scratch on one of his babies. She brushed a spider web off of the navy blue bike with her hand, which surprised her. Had it really been that long since it had last been ridden? 

Maka wasn’t here for the bikes, anyway. Towards the back wall, she shifted a tarp over, revealing a couple of backpacks. It was probably overkill- the packs had been prepared already with tents, sleeping bags, and trail mix that was hopefully still edible- but growing up here, she knew that the desert was a harsh and unforgiving mistress. Better to be safe than sorry. 

They left through a steep and narrow staircase that deposited them practically straight into the desert. With a twinge of sympathy, she noticed Crona’s legs shaking a little while Ragnarok dozed on their shoulder as a rat. 

“Hey, Ragnarok. Could you do me a favor?” Maka asked.

“No.”

“You didn’t even hear what was,” Maka protested.

“I think you’re going to ask me to turn into a donkey and carry that weakling Crona’s backpack because they’re too scrawny to do it themselves.”

“Lucky guess,” Maka sighed. 

“I’m okay,” Crona insisted.

“Fine. Crona, dump Ragnarok’s stuff and we can keep moving. If he wants to come so badly, he can carry his own food and water.”

“But-” Crona stammered.

“Okay I’ll do it! Just don’t get your hands all in my stuff!” Ragnarok relented. Maka knew his source of panic: he’d taken a bunch of sugary energy drinks from the fridge and she knew he was planning full well to drink them past his bedtime. She didn’t want to put up with a caffeinated Ragnarok, but at least it made blackmail easier. 

Ragnarok grew to the size of a mule, which was impressive since he was already an ass, and using some rope she slung the packs over his back.

“Ugh, what’s so heavy in these things anyways?” Ragnarok grumbled.

“Water.”

They walked without talking much. Maka wanted to avoid the main road that she and Soul had taken. Unfortunately, that meant a much longer path, with no vehicle at their disposal. It wasn’t terribly hot that time a year, and it happened to be quite overcast, but the whiteness of the dunes still made her squint. Soon, Death City was just a shape on the horizon.

They walked until the sun hovered low in the horizon. 

When the sun finally set, they had made it past the dunes and drank water amongst a grove of Joshua Trees. Their thick trunks and branches twisted in a way that seemed almost human, as if they had once been people that got lost into the desert and walked until their feet became glued to the ground and their skin turned gray and cracked like bark. Somehow, this reminded Maka of Crona’s story from the spell book they’d found. She could almost believe that the trees were lost souls. 

Maka drank from her water bottle, savoring at how it almost tasted sweet.

As if to mock the travelers, a pinacate beetle marched tirelessly past them with a distinct sense of purpose. 

The moon had already begun to rise above the clouds when Maka and Crona reached the crest of a particularly large hill.

“Woah,” Maka breathed. 

Before them, the desert gave way to the endless sky. Or at least, it looked like endless sky: a flat, smooth expanse like a mirror went for miles and miles in front of them: perfectly reflecting the stars above. She’d been at this spot before, but the surreal sight of a vast, ocean-sized mirror never failed to catch her off-guard. 

“Water!  _ Sweet! _ ” Ragnarok pranced.

“Ragnarok-” Maka tried to call out to him, but he paid no heed- rushing towards the shallows. Moments after dunking his muzzle into the reflecting pool, he instantly arched his back and retched.

“It’s salty, not sweet.” Maka said uselessly. 

She walked to the shore of the flats. The water was a beautiful tropical blue and only a few inches deep, but below the surface a white crystalline powder lined the ground: salt.

The salt flats were a good sign, however terrible they tasted. 

Ragnarok escaped the briny water and collapsed, shrinking until he disappeared under his luggage. Maka watched with fascination as he continued to deflate until he was about the size of her hand. A slug. Wordlessly, Crona knelt down and picked up slug-Ragnarok by his scruff (do slugs have scruffs?) and put him on their shoulder. 

“We should probably take a break,” Crona said.

“That should be fine. The three seventy-five should be about half a day’s hike away.” Maka explained, “If we don’t make it to the station exactly, we could look for a  _ Hellhound _ Bus stop, or hitchhike, maybe. We’re far from the weirdest things to show up there. Unless…” She gave Ragnarok a sly look. “Say, Kid mentioned he had a run-in with you on a pirate ship and saw you turn into a…” 

She didn’t need to finish as Ragnarok hopped up, looking as indignant as a three-inch mollusk could look. “Don’t make me laugh! If I could turn into a dragon, I would’ve left you two twerps behind ages ago!”

Maka figured as much, it was worth a try.

~~~

The night was mild enough that they decided that pitching a tent wouldn’t be worth the effort. Maka briefly remembered her conversation with Kid in the cab. Or was it his house? She couldn't remember. He'd mentioned the weather being bad, but right now the storm clouds from before had dissipated and she had a hard time imagining a night more beautiful than this one. 

“The moon looks incredible.”

It looked different since Crona had somehow found their way to Death City. Still retaining its circular shape, it had been washed in a pearly white light that set the sand dunes aglow in silver. The center of the moon was the brightest white, with tendrils of the lighter color extending outwards in a slight spiral. 

Crona appeared equally transfixed by the sky, but gave a little shake of their head at Maka’s words.

“It’s wishful thinking.” 

Maka gave him a quizzical look. 

“That’s not the real moon” Crona said, “The real moon’s supposed to be round, like a globe. This one’s all sharp and jagged at the edges. It’s just like someone cut a circle out of paper. It could be peeled off anytime.” 

She wasn’t really sure what the string of words Crona had put together meant. Somehow, she found it funny. 

“You don’t think I’m telling the truth?”

“No, no. I guess I just don’t understand what you say, sometimes.”

“Oh. Sorry...”

“Don’t be sorry! I don’t think there’s a couple of friends on Earth that don’t sometimes misunderstand each other.”

“Even you and your partner?”

Crona asked her so earnestly, Maka felt bad for her sardonic laugh. “ _ Especially _ me and Soul. We drive each other crazy sometimes. Sometimes over little things, like who left the burner on, and it ends up not really mattering. Other times we argue because we care about each other, but don’t really have the right words to say it.”

“Mm.” Crona turned back to the sky, “Friendships are strange.”

“You said it,” Maka agreed, “But I guess I don’t have a right to talk to you about roommate troubles.”

“Huh?” 

“I mean, y’know, bunking with the Fear God himself.”

“It’s funny,” Crona pondered, “Asura was never the thing I was most afraid of.”

Maka nodded. Silently, she thought of their late mother Medusa; even though the witch was long-dead, Maka couldn’t suppress a flare of rage in her stomach. Asura was the most dangerous thing she’d ever faced, but Medusa had to be the most despicable. 

“At first Asura was just as you remembered him. But after a while, he started to shrink. Fade away. I think it was hard for him to hold onto the ancient souls he’d eaten, or if the Black Blood surrounding the moon had somehow absorbed all the madness, or if it was just that there was nothing on the moon aside from me and Ragnarok to be afraid of. After a while Asura became just a scared child.”

Maka stared at Crona, not fully understanding. They sometimes had an interesting way with words that straddled the line between poetic and downright indecipherable. 

“You mean Asura acted like a child or like, actually  _ turned into _ a child?” She asked. 

Crona shrugged, “It’s hard to say with his kind. They don’t age the same way humans do. When I left, Asura looked the same age as I was when… When  _ she _ first asked me to kill th-” Crona gave a little shudder, prompting Maka to rub their back. They seemed to calm down, continuing, “It’s like his memories were absorbed by the Black Blood. I don’t really understand it. I wasn’t sure how to deal with this new little one. I knew he’d hurt so many people. But so did I.”

“Hey,” Maka protested, “You didn’t want to hurt those people. You’ve… you’ve had a difficult path from the beginning. If I or anyone else had been born in your place…” She shook her head, “Well, there’s no telling what would happen, but I wouldn’t be who I am now.” She looked at Crona again, “No one trained or forced Asura to kill. He was born a monster, not made one.”

Crona’s look hardened for a second, but before Maka could apologize, they looked down. “I don’t think so. We were both experiments. Both our parents tossed us aside when they didn’t like how we came out. I don’t know what Asura was like before he was sealed away the first time, but if I hadn’t met you, I would’ve hurt more people than he ever did.”

Crona let out a shaky breath. 

Maka was silent. She hoped Crona was wrong about that, but she couldn’t say one way or the other.

“I didn’t know how to deal with Asura at first,” Crona confessed, “But I thought of you and the way you treated me. I thought if I was trapped with him, I would rather say I tried. He was shy, at first. But I taught him some of my favorite games. There’s not much to do on the moon. No plants or water. So we played rock-stack.”

“That’s where you see how many rocks you can stack on top of each other before they fall down. And Crona sucks at it.” Ragnarok explained helpfully. 

“We also played rock fort,” Crona continued.

“Which is when you build a fort out of rocks and then throw rocks at the other person.” Ragnarok elaborated, “Crona also sucks at it.”

“Sometimes we just drew patterns in the sand with our fingers.” Crona put their index finger in the ground, as if reminiscing.

“Crona’s actually pretty good at that one.” Ragnarok admitted.

“Asura doesn’t talk much. But I don’t think he remembers what he did. He’s a part of the Reaper, even if he was a Kishin. It’s not natural for the Reaper to be cooped up on the moon. I don’t know what to do, we’d probably be fine up there forever, but… It’s just strange. For the first time in my life, I can feel what someone else’s feeling. I don’t know how to deal with...”

“Empathy,” Maka suggested.

“Yeah, that.”

Maka didn’t say anything for a while. At last, she turned to Crona, “You’re not here to help me look for Soul, are you?”

Crona hesitated, then shook their head. Maka figured that much. The two had never quite bonded the same way she had with Crona. At first, Maka had thought it was because they were too different. After a while she had realized the opposite was true; in many ways, they were quite similar. Soul knew it, and it scared him. He didn’t say so out loud but, even when Crona had been on both of their good graces, she could sense Soul’s wariness. He’d tried to hide it, but she caught the suspicious looks and the unease lurking in his wavelength. She’d even sensed something like pity. They’d both been reluctant to open up to others, both had held the curse of Black Blood. Soul was afraid he could have succumbed to the same madness as Crona. 

“I guess I can’t force you to care about anyone.” Maka said.

“If he’s important to you, then it’s enough.” 

“He’s more than  _ just _ important to me. Have you… Have you ever been in love?” Maka asked.

Crona looked startled while Ragnarok just snickered. 

“Sorry, that was a personal question to ask.” Maka smiled weakly. “You don’t have to answer. I guess it’s sort of a madness in its own way, though. Making people act in all sorts of ways.”

Maka poked at their fire with a stick. It had died down to the point that the blue flames barely outshone the distant stars in the sky. She decided to put the fire out of its misery, smothering it with sand.

“We’d better get some sleep,” Maka decided, “Good night Crona.”

“Good night.”


	14. Black Memories II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't hike in high heels.

Maka found herself sitting at the piano almost exactly where she had been on her last trip to the Black Room. She was alone, this time. Maka tried not to feel disappointed. It annoyed Maka how excited she started to get everytime she found herself in that room, like one of those dogs that the psychologist trained to drool every time they heard the ringing of a bell. 

Absentmindedly, Maka pressed down a key on the piano. It sounded flat to her.

Maka felt her dress flutter against her legs; _a breeze?_

Maka stood up. Immediately, something felt different. Where her heels had once hit tile, now it felt just slightly more muffled. The ground was wood; polished so smooth that it almost looked like obsidian.

Maka reached forward to feel velvet. The curtain in front of her was so dark she could hardly make out the folds, but even it could not absorb the sliver of light that shone beneath its lower edge. Curiously, Maka pushed the curtain aside. It was heavy, but it complied.

Beyond the curtain, Maka was greeted by rows and rows of seats, making an arc around what she now realized had become a stage.

When Maka turned around, she saw the stage framed by ornate columns depicting acanthus leaves and gargoyles. Floor seats covered the ground while opera boxes dominated the walls. Maka could almost picture a vast crowd, each guest more refined than the next: black tuxedos and flamboyant gowns as far as the eye could see, but except for her, the theater was completely empty. 

Maka heard a tapping that she thought was footsteps and twirled around with a newfound lightness in her step and a hopeful glimmer.

“Soul?” 

_Tap tap tap._

Her heart sank when she found that the space behind her was empty, save for the furniture and the photos.

They weren’t footsteps at all. The old record player was just stammering on itself. Maka was feeling merciful and moved the needle off the vinyl. 

Soul wasn’t there. Maka didn’t want to torture her non-existant audience with anymore piano playing, and she didn’t feel like she was going to wake up anytime soon. Without anything else to do, she wandered to the perimeter of the seating area. 

When Maka looked up, the ceiling was decorated with frescos she couldn’t quite make out in the dim light. Something twisted and dark. Perhaps she had been staring too hard, because before she knew it she’d stumbled forward.

“What the hell?” Maka muttered. 

Her heels had sunken into the ground. For a second, Maka thought it was snow based on the light color, but she realized it was sand. Loose, powdery sand. It spilled out from a crack in the wall that she was sure didn’t exist a second ago. 

Maka walked, more carefully this time, around the miniature sand dune. Sand and heels did not mix, apparently. She’d gone to bed in boots. Were boots not good enough for her subconscious, or what?

At last, Maka reached the back of the theater. It shocked her to see how tiny the piano looked from here. The acoustics had to be killer, or else the back seats would scarcely be able to hear anything at all.

Perhaps most jarring, however, was the door. It didn’t look like it was part of the rest of the slick, dark theater. It was painted teal and looked like it’d belong in a house, not in a huge public building. 

With a jolt, she realized it looked just like Soul’s bedroom door. Shakily, Maka reached forward. She saw her own hand reflected in the bronze of the handle. 

Would it turn? Would it be locked?

A voice spoke up behind her, “Sheesh, has no one taught you to knock first?”

Maka bit back a gasp and, true to form, reacted with her fists before her eyes.

The perpetrator ducked, as if he’d been expecting the onslaught. 

“Woah there, tiger.” There stood Soul, clear as day, palms up.

“Soul?” Maka’s shock got consumed by her temper, “You’re late! Why are you late? I was worried you wouldn’t show up at all.”

“Sorry, got lost. My GPS stopped working. It’s hard to get reception through your thick skull.”

“Ha-ha.” Maka deadpanned. Sometimes, Soul really had a way with women. She gave the door a furtive glance, “You really want me to knock first?”

“Uh,” Soul scratched his chin, “Nah, not really. You barging in all the time keeps me on my toes.” 

“It’s kind of silly we have two separate rooms still, anyways…”

Soul looked surprised, “I thought you liked your personal space.” 

Maka shrugged. If anything, she’d had _too much_ personal space lately. Sure, with Crona and Ragnarok, she wasn’t exactly alone, but it wasn’t the same either. Her life was a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing. She missed the sound of him shuffling around in the kitchen while she vacuumed the rug, the comfortable silence when she sat on the couch with a book while he mashed away at some video game. She even missed when he’d forget to do the dishes, or when he complained at her for leaving her socks in weird places. 

“I don’t mind giving up a little personal space,” Maka murmured. “I mean, I haven’t been hauling my tail around trying to get this crazy spell together for fun.”

“Oh yeah,” He said, “How’s that going for you?”

He sounded nonchalant, almost uncannily so, even by his standards. Maka tried not to think about that too hard. “Well, I’ve got your brain. And I-I think I’ve got your heart. I just need your courage.”

“My courage.”

“Yeah.” Maka realized how vague that sounded. Stupid magic spells, stupid cryptic witches. 

“Huh.”

They both paused, neither knowing what to say. At last, Soul spoke, “And then what?”

“And then-” Maka hesitated. She wasn’t sure exactly. _Good things!_ She told herself.

Soul didn’t wait for her full answer. “And your friend?”

“Crona?” Maka blinked. “I- well, they said they were here because I called them, or something.” She trailed off, thinking. She hadn’t really realized it until now, but Crona might not be around if she actually accomplished her goal. They couldn’t stay off the moon forever, could they? The thought of leaving the Kishin Asura unsupervised sent chills down her spine, no matter how much Crona reassured her. 

She sensed a sort of stiffness in the way Soul held himself. Her eyes trailed down to his chest.

“Is it hard for you to see them with me? Because, you know… your scar...” Maka murmured. 

Soul looked a little startled, then waved his hand. “Nah, that’s not it. Attempted murder. I got better. Whatever.” Soul looked away, hesitating. He sighed as if he couldn’t quite find the right word. “It’s more… uncomfortable. It’s like looking into some sort of messed up funhouse mirror, seeing some of the worst things about myself reflected back.”

Maka tilted her head. They were both a little quiet, sure, plus prior to their battle on the moon there was the whole ‘black blood’ thing, but aside from that she’d considered Soul and Crona to be about as similar as fire and ice. 

“You’re brave, Maka. You’re not like them. You’re not even really like me. I don’t know if you’d get it.” Soul said. He looked down at his hands, like he’d expected them to turn into cold, steely murder weapons. They didn’t. His fingers stayed narrow and slender: regular old pianist hands, like Maka was used to. 

“They’re scared of everything,” Soul said, “People. Trusting. Their friends. All that crap.” He shrugged, “I get it. But when there’s nothing to believe in, it’s easy to snap.”

“You’re not alike, though. You can’t know what they’ve had to deal with.” Maka said, a little sharply. “You had your brother, at least. Even if you weren’t always so close.” 

Soul didn’t seem offended but he didn’t say anything either. 

Maka stared at the ground. “They’ve been really helpful…” Maka started, “I think they _want_ to change. Or maybe just not to be alone anymore.” Maka’s words sounded less certain to herself. 

Soul shrugged. “I dunno. If anyone can tame a stray, it’s you. I mean, look at me. You made me brave, Maka.” 

Maka’s face grew a little warmer in spite of herself.

“But they’re trapped in a labyrinth. Just be careful if they hit a dead end.”

“Labyrinths don’t have dead ends,” Maka pointed out, “you’re thinking of a maze.”

Soul frowned. “Oh. Labyrinth sounds cooler.”

Maka couldn’t argue with that. 

“Speaking of dead ends…” Soul idly kicked at the ground, spraying her ankles with sand. 

That was when Maka realized the pile of sand she’d got caught in was  _ growing _ . Grain by grain, it trickled in, as if they were standing at the bottom of a giant hourglass. Already, it reached up to her ankles, making it hard to lift her feet. It was like her heels had been glued to the floor. How could she not notice?

Maka made a wild grab for the doorknob, her hands recoiled immediately and she bit back a hiss. It was  _ hot _ \- freshly brewed coffee hot. Even if she could grab it, the sand was already a fourth up the door, and she wasn’t sure if it opened inward or outward.

“ _ Soul! _ Are you okay? You’ve got to get out!”

Soul looked painfully nonchalant. “I’ll be fine.  _ You _ need to be careful, though. You’ll end up in a dead end.”

Maka grabbed him by the shoulders. She wanted to shake some sense into his brain, but instead she just stared at him. 

“Make a turn. You’ll only be fine once you wake up,” Soul said. 

“I can’t leave without you, idiot!” 

“Just trust me. You’ve made me brave, now you’ve got to do it for yourself.”

Maka woke up coughing. Her mouth tasted sandy. She’d rolled over in her sleep, and now the side of her face was covered in the stuff. She brushed it off, taking care not to get any into her eyes or mouth. Well, not any more, at least. Ragnarok groaned and turned around, Crona didn't stir. The sky was still dark but glowed with pre-dawn light. Maka shivered from the cold.  



	15. Prison of Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka commits arson.

People didn’t usually associate “desert” with “cold,” but it’s not like the desert cared what people thought. On the contrary, with no mild ocean winds, the dry late-fall air turned downright bitter as it bit at every inch of exposed skin it could reach. 

Maka was reminded of this as she struggled to hold her map between her sluggish, numb fingers. Her gloves apparently weren’t thick enough. 

“I don’t get it,” Maka muttered, half to herself, “We’ve been walking along the flats for hours. We should’ve come across this dirt road by now, at least.”

“I’m bored,” Ragnarok replied helpfully. 

Maybe the dirt road in question had gotten overgrown, or blown away. 

“Strip mall… Strip mall… What’s a strip mall?” Crona asked, “Oh! Is that the sort of place you said your dad always goes to visit?”

“No!” Maka said hastily, “ _Definitely_ not that. It’s just a dirty old shopping center building.”

“If we’re looking for old buildings, what about that one?” 

For a moment, Maka felt a flicker of excitement, but soon it was apparent that Crona evidently could see something Maka could not. All she could see was sand, salt, and sky. 

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Maka prefaced, “But what building?”

“The tower.”

“Tower…” Maka echoed. She squinted. On the horizon, she could make out just the barest, most pail sliver of something that might be a structure. Maka looked at Crona, impressed. For someone who presumably has never been to an eye doctor, they had eyes like a hawk. 

“Not exactly what we’re looking for,” Maka said, “But it’s a landmark.”

She unfurled her map once more. Nothing even remotely resembling a tower was marked. The red arrow on her compass stubbornly pointed towards it. 

~~~

Maka _knew_ the tower was suspicious. The closer they walked to it, the more the horizon revealed. The tower wasn’t a tower at all; but rather, the pinnacle of a very familiar building placed dead-center in a very familiar city.

“Death City.” Maka murmured, “But… that’s _impossible_.”

Desperately, she grabbed for her map and compass. They’d followed the right landmarks, they’d used a compass and map, and not to mention Maka had lived in the state for a bit over twenty years. There was _no way_ they could have possibly made a three-sixty degree turn. It just wasn’t _possible_. 

_Well, think again_ , the universe seemed to gloat: there was no mistaking the city in front of her. 

Maka held out the compass shakily. The little red _North_ arrow pointed stubbornly at the city in front of her, as if it was a magnetic center. 

_Unfortunately, you cannot leave._ Kid’s words echoed in her head. His reasons were all lies, but there was irrefutable truth at the core. 

Maka couldn’t leave Death City, but not because of some vague disasters or lapse in public transit: it was because there _was_ nothing else- not even so much as a lonely strip mall.

A black hole. That’s what it was. It didn’t matter which way she went, or how fast, she’d always end up back in its orbit. And Soul Eater? He was just a twinkle beyond the event horizon. 

“ _No,_ ” Maka said, mostly to herself. 

She wasn’t going to just quit. In the past, Soul had called her bull-headed, stubborn, difficult. And by the Grim Reaper’s good name, he was _right._ Maka was going to prove it to him, laws of physics be damned. She’d pull apart the city brick by brick if she had to. 

“M-Maka,” Crona stammered suddenly, are those your friends?

Maka was immediately on guard. Outside of Crona and maybe dream-Soul, Her friends hadn’t been very, well, friendly as of late. 

Figures collected outside of Death City, like spectators to a train crash. They were human, Maka thought, but upon closer inspection they were mostly just _humanoid_. Their faces were crude and all wrong, and they moved less like people and more like puppets, dragging their limbs at awkward angles.

“No, those are definitely not our friends,” Maka confirmed. 

“Would you be mad if I killed them?”

“I don’t think they’re alive,” Maka said, “So, go ahead.”

“Ragnarok.” Crona commanded. Even though they were physically separated, the demon sword complied with their words, transforming to a long, thin blade. 

“I don’t have a weapon!” Maka realized. She’d left the dingy fire iron back in Death City, not that it would have been much use anyways. 

“It would be easier with two weapons,” Crona noted.

Maka observed the pure black blade in Crona’s hands. Ragnarok wasn’t the same breed of weapon that Tsubaki, Soul, Patty, or Liz were. For one, they had regular human bodies. Ragnarok, even in his separated state, was more like a sticky piece of sentient tar impersonating a body. She’d seen him control parts of his blood remotely. She wondered… 

“Hey, Ragnarok, could you split into dual swords?” Maka asked. 

“What? That’s above my paygrade, sweet-cheeks.”

“I know it’ll be hard.” Maka amended, “It’s just that you’ve been so… flexible lately. I think it’s really cool!"

“You think it’s cool?”

“ _Super_ cool!” That was Maka’s word of choice should she ever need to flatter Soul, and it seemed to be working on Ragnarok too.

“Well, I guess I _am_ pretty talented.” Ragnarok decided. He hopped out of Crona’s hands, morphing into a flat shape the size of a dinner plate with five evenly-shaped arms radiating out of his center. A sea star. 

“Hrrrg!!” Ragnarok concentrated. Maka watched with disgusted fascination as he split himself apart through sheer willpower. The whole show looked like something out of the _cellular mitosis_ chapter of a biology textbook. One of the half-Ragnaroks turned into a smaller blade, a dagger really, and hopped into Crona’s hands. The other looked up at Maka with one googly eye. “You any good with swords, little girl?”

“No, not really.” Maka confessed. 

Ragnarok rolled his eye. “I’ve got my work cut out for me. Heh, _cut_.”

To Maka’s surprise, he changed shape, elongating. On the end of the pole that used to be his body was a curved blade. A scythe! He was more frail than Soul’s scythe, which she couldn’t hold against him. Ragnarok’s scythe blade was silver decorated with vertical black bars, making it look like a Cheshire Cat’s frown. Where the blade met the pole was a big, X-ed out googly eye. He stood upright, ready for her to grab.

“Not bad!” Maka smiled.

“It’s just for now. Don’t get used to it, Cupcake!” Ragnarok warned.

Maka reached out with both hands to grab the pole. She recoiled at the touch. 

The metal where her palms touched instantly transformed into a warm, sticky tar that gushed beneath her grip. It was like trying to hold black silly putty.

“What’s your problem, pick me up!” Ragnarok squawked.

“I’m trying!” But the malleable goo did not comply. This didn’t entirely surprise her. Picking up a weapon wasn’t exactly as easy as playing musical chairs: it took a special kind of understanding that was just a level above what you could pick up during a speed date. Even she and Soul, who had gone on to be lifelong best friends and then some, hadn’t meshed the first time they attempted to resonate. Or the second. Or the third. And Soul wasn’t even a sociopathic monster (contrary to what his broody thirteen-year-old self would’ve liked to believe).

Even though Ragnarok was being about as helpful as she’d ever seen him, she could still feel his- perhaps unintentional- struggle against her soul. He wanted to control her, manhandle her: with a meister like Crona, that’s probably all he knew. 

Maka didn’t exactly have time for a heart-to-heart with the demon blade- but desperate times called for desperate measures.

 _No,_ Maka thought, _you won’t control me._

_We need to find common ground. A reason to work together._

For starters, neither of them really wanted to die. That was something. Maka tried to close her eyes and relax her palms, letting the ooze flow freely around her fingers and trying to ignore how nasty it felt. Ragnarok’s soul was strange and twisted, not fully human anymore but not yet fully monster. He hated rules, he wanted to do as he pleased. At one point Medusa let him, she didn’t care if he ate ‘innocent’ souls. What did innocent mean anyways? It was just a stupid made-up word like anything else. If he had to be tied down to some kid, so be it. But lately “freedom” took on a slightly different definition. In Maka’s mind’s eye she saw Death City from high above. Pitch black wings, shaped like a bird’s but made of black blood, propelled herself higher and higher. She felt lighter than she’d felt in a long time, and realized that’s how Ragnarok must feel without Crona pulling him down. _Freedom._ Maka sighed. She could relate to that.

Maka hadn’t ever really thought about what Ragnarok was like before his permanent bond to Crona. Had he been a grown man, or just a little kid? Did he give himself willingly or was he brainwashed? Was he _forced_?

 _I want to be free too,_ she thought. _Free of guilt. Free of whatever weird spell Death City’s under. That’s why we need to work together._

Her fingers curled around her weapon once more, surprised to find that it was solid metal. Cautiously, she lifted the scythe. It wasn’t like wielding Soul- far from it- but it was lightyears better than using a fire poker. It felt good to wield a living, breathing weapon again. 

“Ha, I knew we could do it! Your boyfriend’s going to be _so_ jealous of me! I mean, if he wasn’t dead-ish.”

“Hey, Ragnarok!” Maka said, “Shut up!”

One of the figures hobbled towards her. It almost looked injured, or drunk. When it came closer, Maka realized the texture of its skin was really more like clay. She got a horrible flashback of how Black Star’s arm had fallen clean off. 

“We don’t want to fight you,” Maka warned, “Stay away!”

“Speak for yourself! I want to fight him.” Ragnarok snapped. 

Its head lifted as if it had been pulled up by a string, lingering on Ragnarok, then on Maka. Its hand lifted, raised unnaturally. 

“Back to the desert,” It said without moving its mouth, “You’d be safer wandering. No answers.”

Maka didn’t know what the clay creature knew, or how. 

“Let us pass,” She said.

The creature didn’t say anything, but when Maka stepped forward, it blocked her. One hand, jointed like a mannequin's, reached towards her. She slammed the hilt of Ragnarok against it, and gave a kick to the torso. The creature’s body was brittle, but still heavy and dense enough to cause Maka to recoil from her kick. 

“Back to the desert,” It repeated. 

Before Maka could strike again, Crona was already at her side: one cut and the clay creature fell to the ground in two halves. Maka thought she saw something small move. None of the other figures seemed intent on attacking them until they approached closer, so Maka took the chance to lift one if its broken arms curiously.

There was no muscle, no sinew, no bone to speak of. But it wasn’t just compact dirt, either, Maka realized. When she squeezed the dirt in her hands, crumpling it, white tendrils of something held it together in clumps. 

Soul had once bought some pansies to put in the planter by their kitchen; when he’d taken them out of the pot, the dark dirt held the cylindrical shape of the plants’ former container with tendrils of white. 

They were roots. 

Suddenly, it all made sense: the hydras whose heads sprung back, Black Star’s arm, and, if Maka’s suspicion proved right, the figures that now prevented her from entering her own city.

_You know, if you prune a plant just right, it only grows back stronger._

The witch had told her, long ago, the day Soul had died. 

“We can’t kill them by cutting them,” Maka shouted.

“You just said we could kill them!” Ragnarok complained, “Make up your mind!”

“You know what I mean,” she growled. 

Maka stared down at the clay person. Already, shards of its body wiggled, propelled by the organic threads that filled its otherwise lifeless body.

Maka recoiled as the arm she was holding made a grab for her, watching as the roots hungrily grabbed at the sand below them, seeking to restore their lost form.

How could she kill a plant that refused to die? She’d killed many houseplants by accident. Overwatering, plants didn’t like to be overwatered. Plants didn’t like caterpillars. Plants didn’t like herbicide. Unfortunately, Maka had none of those things. What kind of girl didn’t have a purse full of caterpillars handy?

 _Fire!_ She had fire. A tiny lighter, but it was something. 

Maka pulled out the little red lighter. She didn’t smoke, and pretty much only used it to light the pilot light in their oven on the rare occasion it went out, or to start little campfires like she had last night, so it took her a few clicks to actually make a flame appear.

“Stay back!” She warned. 

If walking clay figures could look unimpressed, this one did. 

“Maka, before we die, I need to tell you something.” Ragnarok said, “But you have to promise I won’t get in trouble.”

“Ragnarok, I can’t promise that.”

“ _Promise!_ ”

Maka groaned. “Fine!” She snapped. 

“I went to the corner store, and I wanted to see how the special adult juice tasted. And I made Crona taste some.”

“It was horrible,” Crona shuddered. 

“It wasn’t _that_ bad, don’t be a baby!”

“Okay,” Maka said, “Do you happen to have any _special adult juice_ on hand?”

“Ooh! Are we doing shots?” Ragnarok bounced.

“Yes!” Maka lied. 

“It’s in the middle pocket of Crona’s backpack! I dumped out all the water because this seemed more important.”

Maka dove for the pack. Sure enough, it held a crystal clear bottle with a little cartoon cowboy on the front- tequila. Eighty proof. If this tequila had been bought by any other person, Maka was sure it would have caused many a hangover, but right now it was going to save her a headache. 

“If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to do it right,” Maka said, “We’ve got to cut up as many of the clay figures as we can. Expose their roots!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I do like cutting,” Ragnarok said. 

It was hard wielding Ragnarok while also holding the bottle of precious amber liquid, but Maka managed. The clay figures swarmed her and Crona- there were twenty or so, total. Not _too_ many, but Maka knew if her plan didn’t work then there would soon easily be forty, then eighty, and so forth. 

Their bodies disintegrated into chunks of clay and dirt. Almost immediately, Maka could make out the subtle writhing of pale little roots, trying to rebuild. 

Maka leapt over the pile of rubble, trying to use the tequila as effectively as she could. When Maka thought she had done a pretty good job, she grabbed Crona by the arm, trying to put as much distance between them and the arson she was about to commit. 

“Cheers!” 

Maka popped open the lighter, allowing the tiny flame to burst to life. 

One root prominently stuck out, practically begging to be a fuse. Maka lowered the flame. For a frightening second, the flame contemplated, while the still-living roots writhed and rose with more intensity than before. 

The tip of the root began to glow and, having gotten a taste of the tequila, the flame arose with newfound intensity. 

Vibrant orange flames licked away at the roots, turning white to black and crumbling into ash. At last, the fire consumed all that it could and simmered down to a low, red burn. Nothing moved. 

“Woah,” Ragnarok said, “Amazing! I love alcohol!”

Maka would have to unpack Ragnarok's feelings towards alcohol later, but she had more pressing matters. There was someone else she wanted to have a chat with.

Death the Kid- he’d made excuses for her not to leave. He’d been watching her from the start. She had a frightening suspicion that he may not be the Kid she once knew, but if nothing else, he may give her a hint as to what the source of Death City’s weirdness was, and find Soul's courage. 


	16. When my friends are no longer around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka is the life of the party.

Maka didn’t care if Death the Kid had been her friend. She didn’t care that he was a Death God, the Grim Reaper himself. She just didn’t care anymore: she wanted  _ answers _ . She wanted to get her scythe back.

Calves sore and coat covered in dust, she grabbed Crona’s wrist and was ready to stomp all the way to the DWMA.

The halls were lit, but empty. 

The theater was grand, to put it lightly. More grand than Maka remembered, for sure. She wasn’t sure why the DWMA had such a beautiful theater in the first place, since its main goal was training for combat. Leave it to Kid to fund the arts, Maka thought with a newfound appreciation.

With a chill, Maka realized she had seen this theater before: her dream when Crona and she had fallen asleep by the Salt Flats. Twin gargoyles glared down at her from either corner of the stage, Maka could feel their lifeless stone gaze go right through her. 

The theater appeared empty, as she had seen it in her dream. White piano keys gleamed from the top of the stage, catching her eye in the otherwise dark room. 

_ Soul? _ Maka thought. 

“Wait here for a minute,” She told Crona. 

They gave a nod as Maka ascended the stage. The rubber of her boots felt strange on the polished wood. Maka got the distinct feeling of being underdressed. She should be wearing dress heels up here, shouldn’t she?

Maka sat on the bench. It didn’t feel any more or less real than it had in her dream.

Maka tried to remember Soul’s song. She could imagine the tune in her head. It was almost like he was there, playing on a second piano somewhere just out of view. Where had he placed her hands? He hit the white key on the left side of the three black keys… was it here or there…?

She played a few keys. It sounded clumsy, but surprisingly okay. At least, it sounded vaguely like a melody and not like a random jumbling of sounds. 

Polite clapping echoed throughout the room. At first, Maka thought it was Crona, but more pairs of hands joined the chorus, filling the air like the sound of rain. Maka stood and turned around. She squinted at the spotlight, but then realized there was no spotlight for her eyes to adjust to: just an overcast daytime sky. 

A gathering of familiar faces, all somber and in dark colors, stared at her from the graveyard. Death the Kid stood by her side, as somber and monochrome as the rest.

“Simply beautiful. Thank you for that exquisite performance, Maka.” He said, clasping pale hands together. “Now, a few words?”

“Oh.” Maka said. “Um,” She shook her head, trying to collect her thoughts. Something was wrong about Death City. What was it? She had to tell Kid. What was she supposed to tell Kid? Something was wrong...

Her gaze dropped in front of her. The casket was placed in such a way that the back of the lid obscured the view of the interior from Maka and Kid, but gave the audience a full view.

“I can’t say anything. Not really.” Maka told him. 

“At a loss for words,” Kid said, almost sympathetically. 

“No…” Maka hesitated. She was drawn to the casket. It yawned open, calling to her. Hesitantly, she stepped away from Kid. Around the casket. She peered inside.

It was empty.

The inside was a fine leather, like what she’d expect in a luxury car. Maka was almost tempted to sit inside, just to see what it felt like. But it was completely empty. Not even a single white hair to be found.

“He’s not even here. I can’t talk about him like he’s dead if he’s not here.” 

Kid looked startled for a moment, but quickly covered it up with his cool facade. He stepped around to join Maka.

“Oh, my,” He said. He at least had the decency to look somewhat ashamed. “It appears we have lost our guest of honor.”

Uneasy murmurs broke out through the crowd.  _ He’s not here? Where did he go? Stage fright? Playing hooky at his own funeral… _

Kid looked increasingly anxious. “Well, this won’t do,” He said, adjusting his collar. Probably trying to correct some micro-asymmetry, as if fixing that might help save the party. “This simply won’t do. We cannot have a funeral service without a death.” 

Kid looked out at the crowd, “Please, remain calm. We simply have to find someone else to die.” The crowd hushed, nodding as if that made sense. “I’d volunteer myself, of course,” Kid said, “Although as a Death God, dying does not come easy for me. Perhaps…” His gaze sharpened into the crowd. Maka turned around to see Black Star. He had three arms, for some reason. Weird.

“Hey, don’t look at me!” Black Star protested, “I’m too big a star to die!”

“The biggest stars collapse the hardest,” Liz pointed out.

“Perhaps you could volunteer?” Kid asked.

“ _ No way.  _ I’m  _ not  _ dying in  _ this _ outfit.” 

“Why not his partner?” A voice said, “It seems fitting, she was closest to him.”

Suddenly, about a dozen pairs of eyes burned into Maka. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Maka stammered, “I never really saw myself having an open-casket funeral…” 

“Don’t worry, Maka, you’ll do great!” Tsubaki smiled, hands clasped together.

“Yeah, Maka, if anyone can do it, it’s you!” Black Star grinned at her.

“It’s quite easy, really.” Kid told her, “Much easier than being alive. Simply step into the casket and lie down.”

The leather looked  _ really _ comfy. 

“Alright, alright,” Maka relented. She was a little embarrassed at having everyone stare at her like this, but they were her  _ friends. _ She shouldn’t feel self-conscious around them. 

She stepped into the casket. 

The leather felt cool against her back. Comfortable. She could nap here. She could understand why someone would want to nap forever.

“You shouldn’t be in there,” A voice said, very close to her. Soul peered down at her. 

“Soul!” Maka scolded, “You’re late  _ again _ . Kid threw you this whole beautiful celebration and you couldn’t even bother to show up?”

“I hate these sorts of parties,” Soul grumbled, “I didn’t ask for this. I’m sick of pretending to be polite and talking to people I don’t care about.” 

“You’re such a brat.”

He stuck his tongue out at her, which proved her point.

“If you don’t want to talk to anyone, just come in here.” Maka frowned, thinking to herself. “I think I’m supposed to lie down with my eyes closed, but I’d get lonely here all by myself...” 

“Lonely, huh?” He tried and failed to hide a snicker. 

“It’s not funny!”

“I’m not making fun of you,” He insisted, “It’s just that you’re always acting like a bookworm, or super independant, or whatever. But you’ve still got a soft spot. It’s kind of cute, you know?”

Maka grabbed Soul’s wrists and helped him clamor in. Neither of them were particularly wide individuals, but even then, it was a little cramped in the casket. Maka hoped they wouldn’t have to stay in too long; one of her legs was already starting to fall asleep. Not that she could complain too much. If it had been anyone other than Soul, it probably would have been awkward to be in such tight quarters. His face was close enough to hers that she could count his eyelashes if she wanted to.

“Hey,” She said.

“What’s up?”

She could feel his breath against her face. Minty fresh. He was dead, Maka remembered. Did they have toothpaste in the afterlife? Maka pondered this as she stared at his mouth.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked.

Soul hesitated, glancing down at her lips. “Uh. You’d better go first.”

Maka didn’t have many coherent thoughts to speak of at all. She shifted, coming in closer, closer, until their noses brushed and they fell into a kiss. She let her eyes close, appreciating his warmth as he leaned in deeper. 

Soul, pulled back first. He looked a bit dazed, but once he pulled his thoughts together, he stammered, “So, uh, I’m not  _ not _ into it,” He said slowly, “But is making out in a coffin, like, a normal thing to do in Death City or is this sort of kinky?”

Maka was about to formulate an answer until a much more pressing matter took priority. “ _ Damn _ , our friends are watching!” She shoved him away as best she could in the small space, perhaps a bit roughly judging by his muffled “ow,” and jolted straight up, hoping her face wasn’t as red as it felt. 

The sky was covered by ceiling once more. Death the Kid was gone. The audience was gone. Maka felt momentary relief before she saw Crona’s pale hair bob up from the back of the auditorium. 

“Crona, I- I was just checking out this casket.”

“Oh. Pretty.”

Maka looked to her side. Soul was gone too, she realized with disappointment.

“Did you see anything unusual?”

“Unusual?” Crona tilted their head. Ragnarok didn’t say anything either; he would have been a dead giveaway.

“Nevermind,” Maka muttered, climbing out to join Crona.

“Are you okay? You’re all red.”

“I’m just out of breath from all the stairs,” Maka said. 

“Oh.”

“There is something unusual, actually, now that you mention it” Crona said, “No one is here.”

Maka nodded. Her soul perception was still strangely fuzzy, but she couldn’t pick up anything other than herself, Crona, and Ragnarok.

“When I lived here,” Crona continued, “It was always buzzing, at least a little bit. Students, janitors, even mice or crickets living in the walls… Now it’s only quiet…”

“We didn’t learn anything about Soul’s courage, either.” Maka muttered.

“Nothing?”

Maka thought about the dream, or vision, or whatever she’d had. She’d flashed back to the funeral, among other things. Most importantly, she’d seen the casket. Soul wasn’t there, at least not at first.

“There’s something I’d like to check.” Maka said. 


	17. Fill my Empty Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka desecrates a grave.

The wind howled around Crona and Maka violently, as if it was angry that they had dared to even approach the gravesite, aware of the sin they were about to commit. The front gates, a grand arch of intricate black iron cast in patterns resembling ivy, stood imposing and unyielding before them. The rails that reached the top of the gate were deceptively beautiful, although Maka wasn’t fooled when she saw that they ended in sharp points like the tips you’d see on a trident. A clear _stay out_ if there ever was one. The two gate doors were chained shut. Maka stepped forward and gave them an experimental jiggle- the chains rattled against the metal but there was no way they could get through.

“Maybe we could come back tomorrow.” Crona suggested. 

Maka shook her head. A little voice in her head told her that they’d be locked out tomorrow as well, and she didn’t want to waste any more time. The inviting, sunlit day they’d visited the cemetery was nothing more than a daydream, swept away by the harshness of reality. 

“I’m getting in tonight. You can keep watch if you want, or go home.” 

Crona didn’t budge. They weren’t going home tonight either. 

Maka wrapped her fingers on the iron grate and heaved herself up. It was tricky business- there weren’t a lot of footholds that she could reliably rest her boots on. She managed to hang off the top, careful not to wrap her palms around the spearhead points. 

“Well?” She looked down at Crona, reaching out a hand.

Crona nodded and grabbed on. Even though they were taller than Maka, they were surprisingly light, which shouldn’t have surprised her. She was used to slinging Soul around and, although he was definitely on the lean side, Crona was skin and bones even compared to him. 

At last, the bottom of their shoes had found the ground on the other side of the gate.

“I guess we’re here.” Maka said, half to herself.

Maka didn’t remember the funeral well, but it seemed as if her feet did. She mindlessly walked, Crona in tow, along a dark cobblestone path, hardly acknowledging the rows of cross shaped stone. There were times when she swore she was human like shapes moving in the corner of her eye, but whenever she would turn and look it would just be an angel-shaped headstone or the waving branches of the odd tree. 

At last, she halted.

Soul’s grave was minimalist compared to the rest, almost graceful. It was slick and black as if carved from obsidian. It only had his nickname, no date or title. Just _Soul Eater_ with a simple etching of a scythe beneath it. If Maka thought it was strange they didn’t use his legal name, she didn’t show it. 

Her hand moved of its own accord, coming to rest on the top of the black headstone. She winced at the ripple of cold that shot through her arm. Suddenly, she was hyper aware of the fresh dirt her boots sunk into ever so slightly. 

“Are you scared?” Crona’s voice broke her trance. She looked at them wearily. 

“Yeah.” She admitted, “But it helps that you’re with me.”

“I’m glad you’re with me too.”

Maka laughed. That was it, they’d both gone crazy. In the span of a week, Maka had gone from one of the greatest meisters in Death City to a grave digger. 

“Let’s get this over with before we come to our senses.” She said, grabbing a hold of the shovel.

The soil may have been loose but was still bitter work. Death City’s soil was quite sandy, so they had to be careful to heave it far enough from the growing hole in the ground so it didn’t just sprinkle back in. 

They had made about three feet of progress when Maka stepped back, catching her breath and wiping the sweat from her brow. She found herself leaning on a grave before she realized what she was doing. “Er- sorry!” Maka stepped back from it, reading the inscription on it “Jim Tohnson.” She read the name out loud. Maka thought that sounded like a name somebody just made up, but then again, she supposed all names were made up. 

Not wanting to bother Jim anymore, she settled for sitting down on the ground. 

Where Maka expected to feel hard gravelly soil, instead she was met with the soft and welcoming cushion of an old couch that’s been sat on one too many times. Maka let herself sink in before looking up.

A beautiful piano medley trickled into her ears, but it sounded muffled, as if it was coming from a closed room.

Crona and the graveyard were gone, instead she met the yellow eyes of Death the Kid, illuminated by the honey-colored sunlight that streamed through the window. He wasn’t alone. Liz and Patty sat next to her on the couch, sharing a concerned expression. Black Star sat cross-legged on the floor. Tsubaki had pulled a kitchen chair into the living room. Her friends all made a half-circle around her. 

“I didn’t know you’d be coming over so soon,” Maka said, a bit flustered, “I would’ve cleaned up more.” Her apartment wasn’t terribly messy, but she still glanced nervously at the multiple empty green tea cans that occupied her coffee table, and hoped no one would notice the old socks that poked out from beneath the couch. 

“That’s not important right now,” Kid said with a wave of his hand, “We’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while.”

“You keep blowing us off.” Black Star piped up indignantly, “We’re your _friends_.” He crossed three of his arms. Maka still felt bad about amputating the one arm, but he seemed to be over that. 

The three girls made sounds of agreement. 

Kid was sitting neatly on an armchair that she didn’t recognize: it was sleek and black and white, like something she’d think to see in the lobby of a fancy modern office building in the city. In spite of the seriousness of his expression, she thought it was kind of funny that he probably dragged the thing from his place just because her own furniture did not meet his aesthetic sensibilities. 

“We’re all in agreement. Your current pattern of behavior is... concerning.” Kid said that last word delicately. 

Maka didn’t say anything, letting the soft piano music fill the silence. She glanced over to Soul’s old vinyl record player; an ancient but nonetheless attractive machine he’d snagged at a yard sale. Now it crouched quietly in the corner and collected dust. Where was the music coming from?

“Maka.” Kid’s voice sounded more firm this time.

“I’m happy that you all care about me, but there’s nothing to worry about.” Maka’s voice sounded surprisingly serene in her ears, “I’ve been grieving on my own time, but the burden gets lighter every day.”

Kid’s expression darkened. “Your soul is more stable than most. It has to be, given your past endeavors, but it appears that it’s met its match.”

Maka tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“You.” He said. 

Maka’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“I think you do, Maka. Black blood, madness, none of it could unravel your spirit- but that’s only because you wouldn’t let it. Now you’re unraveling yourself. We want to understand _why_.”

Maka wanted to stand up angrily, but she’d sunken a bit too far into the couch and ended up stumbling. “Are you talking about Soul?” Her fists clenched shakily, “He’s _alive_. I don’t know why any of you refuse to listen to me!”

“I don’t know why you choose to believe the words of a _Kishin_ over your own friends.” Kid retorted. He had venom on his tongue at the word “Kishin.”

“Crona’s not a _Kishin_ .” Maka hissed, “They’re my _friend_. They’re the only one who bothered to listen to me.”

“Tell me,” Kid laced his fingers together, “If you were a crippled alcoholic, would the bartender who continued to serve you well past your limit still be considered a ‘friend?’”

Maka scowled, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of an answer. The piano melody continued to trickle into the room.

“The bartender would continue to serve you as long as you had a thirst for his drinks and the money to give him.” Kid finished.

“I don’t _like_ living this way.” Maka admitted, “If Soul was really gone, I know he’d want me to wish him peace and move on. That would be the healthy thing to do. I don’t need you to tell me that. But he’s _not_ gone, and I’m not ever going to fail him again. Understand?”

“Maka,” The voice belonged to a man older than Kid. Maka turned with a start to see her father sitting next to her.

“I keep telling you to knock before you come in,” Maka growled.

She felt a light pressure on her shoulder where her father placed his hand, but there was no warmth.

“I understand how hard it is,” Spirit told her quietly, “Do you think I stopped loving your mother after she left?”

“That’s not the same thing!” Maka snapped, “I’m not a lying cheater like you.” 

Her father looked her in the eye with a strange intensity that made Maka shiver, “If it’s not the same thing then what are you afraid of?” Maka ripped away from him, standing for real this time. When she blinked, Spirit’s expression reverted to his regular ‘concerned dad’ look. 

“I’m still sane!” Maka insisted. She definitely didn’t sound sane, even to herself, but the fact that she was aware of that just meant she really _was_ sane, right?

Tsubaki shook her head despairingly, as if she didn’t want to believe Maka had committed an unspeakable sin but couldn’t deny the evidence in front of her eyes. 

Kid picked up the remote controller from the coffee table. “Maka, would a sane woman do this?”

He clicked on the TV. The image was grainy for a moment, but it cleared up enough for her to be able to make out a gray scene. She could make out Crona’s lilac-colored hair as they looked at a girl with a shovel who was facing away from the screen. Crona’s lips moved on the TV, but the audio was too fuzzy to make out their words clearly. 

“That’s you.” Black Star said, as if it wasn’t obvious.

Maka didn’t have it in her to make a sarcastic comment, mortified at the video that played in front of them.

TV-Maka said something back, words still indistinct but just loud enough for Maka to remember how much she _hated_ listening to audio recordings of her voice. 

“Turn that off right now.” Maka demanded.

No one seemed to hear her; seven pairs of eyes were glued to the screen. The light outside the room was colder, now. 

“Turn. It. _off_ !” Maka repeated.  
  
When she was ignored a second time, Maka sprinted to the TV. It should have taken about three seconds to cross the living room and press the power button, but Maka’s legs felt like they were moving through syrup. The room seemed to grow longer with each step she took towards the flickering screen. 

_I need to leave_ , she thought desperately. Her vision tunneled on that screen, her saving grace. The friends that lingered in the corners of her eyes no longer looked so familiar. 

She stepped onto sandy dirt with a soft _crunch_. 

When Maka looked up, Crona peered down on her from the top of the hole. Their head was outlined by the equally gray sky. Around her, gray-black soil formed an amorphous wall. 

“I can’t find him.” Maka let out a broken sigh. She looked back down. They had dug at least six feet, easily, but there was no sign of the polished black casket. Only dirt. Maka fell hopelessly onto her knees and hugged herself. Her arms and shoulders burned with the exertion, so she focused on rubbing them to ease the pain. “He’s-He’s not here.”

She felt a soft thump as Crona landed beside her. They also knelt, rubbing their arm as if they weren’t quite sure what to do with their hands. At last, they gingerly put one skinny arm around her shoulders. Something in Maka seemed to shatter, and couldn’t suppress the sob that rose from her chest. Hot and wet tears rolled down her face. Tears that should have been shed at the funeral, but now they just wet the dirt where Soul was supposed to be. 

Maka wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but eventually her breathing returned to normal. 

“I’m sorry…” She managed, wiping an eye. 

“It’s fine either way.” 

Crona looked down.

“I didn’t think he was going to be here. I didn’t think you’d listen to me unless you went yourself to check.” Crona confessed. Maka shrugged, they were probably right. 

“It just feels like this was my last chance, you know? Like, if Soul was dead I could finally just confirm it with my own eyes. I just want this to all be over.” Maka realized she’d just insinuated that she’d prefer if he was dead, but Crona didn’t hold it against her. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

Maka had wanted to tear Death City apart brick by brick, but just digging a lousy hole had drained every ounce of strength from her: both body and soul. If Crona hadn’t been there, she would have happily slumped into the dirt and let the worms have their way with her. 


	18. Can you even remember the sun?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wake me up before you go-go.

The day they set out was November fourth. 

Soul had been in the bathroom, peering intently at his own reflection. A strand of floss was wedged between two pointy teeth. When he examined his own face, he looked more dead than usual, but poor complexion and eye-bags aside, he was going to take his dental hygiene seriously if it was the last thing he did.

When three sharp knocks hit the bathroom door, Soul grumbled to himself. Maka’s muffled voice came through from the other side, “Come on!”

“Heah, heah,” Soul replied. He had meant it as _yeah, yeah_ , but talking is hard when your mouth is in the process of being used as a loom. Of course Maka was the love of his life, his moon and his stars, but Soul knew too well she did _not_ appreciate the importance of a morning routine. Soul didn’t want to dream _too_ big, but one day he hoped to live in an apartment with two bathrooms. Or even one and a half. Just so that Maka could take her two minute military shower (how could she even clean herself that fast?) while Soul could take a few hours to get his hair _juuust_ right. 

He and Maka had to go investigate some witchy stuff, no rush. He wasn’t really sure what Maka’s deal was. It seemed like any other day. 

Obviously, it wasn’t _exactly_ like any other day, no matter what Soul told himself. He might have spectacularly fucked up a couple nights ago, and the cold metal reminder of that sat there on his bedside table, silently mocking him when he went back to his room to grab a fresh pair of jeans. 

Soul hadn’t seen his literal inner demon in quite some time. Not since the moon, as far as he could remember. But at times it felt like the imp was still there. Maybe that was just Soul’s inner voice, but it felt easier to give it a face.

Right now, it felt like the ghost of the imp was coiled deep in his gut, giving him that devilish grin. 

_Remember the balcony?_ It would gloat at him, _How stupid could you be? To think that would work..._

Soul cringed at the memory, gritting his teeth. _Stupid!_ He shook his head. _No, shut up,_ he told the voice in his head, _not everything’s about you_. 

He nearly bumped into Maka leaving his room, who smiled at him a little more tenderly than he could handle right then. She looked sleepy as well, but due to some unfair law of nature, she actually managed to pull it off without looking like a zombie. Their gazes met for a moment and Soul gave her a low “morning,” and then muttered something about checking his bike. _Can’t even look your own girlfriend in the eye? So uncool._

~~~

"Ready to go get our asses kicked together?” Maka asked.

Their resonance had been off. Horribly, terribly, off. Soul could try to deny it. Maka bore the brunt of it, he knew with a sharp twinge of guilt. It was her hands that burned as she tried to hold a weapon she couldn’t see eye-to-eye with. To Soul, it felt suffocating. Not agonizing, but suffocating- like a too-tight, too-itchy wool sweater, or like his body was full of tiny invisible splinters he could feel every time he moved.

But Maka was acting like she had a plan. She always had a plan, that one, except when she didn’t. It didn’t matter to Soul either way. He didn’t care if the brunch place she chose had only two stars, nor did he care that the two of them were about to get annihilated by some sort of walking venus fly trap. As long as they were in it together.

 _Sure, not like I had anything else planned today_ , Soul said. 

As if on cue, the debris shifted and churned. The witch arose with a vengeance. No more roots; the remaining plants from the walls appeared to come to life, writhing and growing. 

It was about then when Soul sensed something change in Maka. The fire behind her firm grip faded, he was loose in her hands. 

_Maka, what’s up?_

“I…” She sounded dazed. The look in her eyes was faraway. When she swayed, every cell in Soul’s body screamed _wrong!_

“Maka!” Soul was guy again in a flash. Maybe she needed a weapon, but there were some things only a human could do: like grab his meister as she lost consciousness, preventing her from plummeting on the cold, hard floor.

“Maka? Wake up! _Shit!_ ” Brave, courageous Maka was out like a light, limp in his arms. 

Soul didn’t see the witch’s attack, but he assumed it was a similar sensation as being trapped in a spin dryer with a bucket full of thumbtacks. The witch had trapped him in a mass of vines, arms and legs tied together.

Soul writhed and struggled, but it was no use. With every move he made, thorns responded in kind: digging in further into his skin. There was a sharp jab in his ribcage where the vines cut a little too close. He could turn one of his arms into a blade, attempting to hack through the witch’s grasp, but he was too exhausted to do much else. 

If he could escape this trap, it was no use. Even with the power of one hundred evil souls, he always fought better in Maka’s hands. 

The witch walked towards him with the calm, slow gait of a predator who knew she’d already bested her prey. 

She reached out with one skinny, wrinkled arm. Soul snarled like a cornered rat, but couldn’t do much else. This only seemed to amuse the witch. Her hand was startlingly cold against his forehead, or maybe he was just hot. 

Soul was never as good at reading his foes as Maka was, but just then, something seemed to change in the witch’s demeanor. She removed her hands and took a step back.

“ _You… You seem familiar…_ ”

If she was expecting a response, Soul didn’t give her one. 

“ _Yes…_ ” The witch continued, “ _I’ve seen you before on the television… You’re the Death Scythe, are you not? I apologize, you’re less handsome than I recall. Different hair. You seem, my eyesight isn’t what it once was..._ ”

“What the hell did you do to my meister?” Soul snapped. 

“ _If you’re the Death Scythe…_ ” Her head turned to Maka, “ _Ah! The woman must be your ex-wife…_ ”

Soul’s anger was replaced by momentary bafflement. He realized there was a good chance the senile old witch was confusing him with the _other_ Death Scythe, Spirit Albarn. An infamous womanizer who happened to once be married to Maka’s mother. Soul wasn’t sure which was worse: being mistaken for Spirit, or being called uglier than Spirit- he didn’t care _how_ bad the witch’s eyesight was. 

“ _You still care for her, don’t you… I may be old, but I can tell… That’s quite admirable of you, my ex husband is somewhere at the bottom of a peat bog right now._ ” The witch cackled as if she’d told a funny joke, “ _If it’s any consolation, she’s not dead. Simply on a journey, of sorts..._ ”

The vines around Soul loosened, allowing him to collapse to the ground. He landed on his hands and knees, biting back a sharp gasp when one of his wrists twinged painfully. Apparently the witch didn’t see him as much of a threat. He scrambled over to Maka, pulling her so that she lay face up. Her eyes stayed closed and her head rolled limply, but she was breathing. A tiny flicker of relief, but seeing her battered and covered in scrapes made it feel like his heart was being pummeled by a sledgehammer. _How could this happen?_ He was a _Death Scythe_ , for crying out loud, the choice weapon of the Grim Reaper himself, but he still couldn’t even protect his own girlfriend. _Useless!_

“ _I hate to apologize, but I believe one is due…_ _You must understand… with the economy being how it is… I must take certain measures to prevent the misuse of my wares._ ” 

Soul grit his teeth in frustration. He wanted to do to the witch what a lawnmower did to grass, but he knew that if he made the wrong move she could easily put Maka and himself to sleep for good.

The witch seemed blissfully oblivious to his anger, only swinging her head around at her now destroyed boutique. _“Perhaps it’s time I switched to an online store._ ”

“That’s it?” Soul growled.

“ _Yes._ ”

“You nearly killed my meister, all over your stupid lotions or whatever?”

“ _I am eight hundred years old. You and the girl both are nothing more than tiny mites crawling up a magnificent oak tree._ ” The witch paused, “ _I’m the oak tree in this metaphor._ ”

“I got it.”

“ _She is the one who accepted my gift. I can’t awaken her myself. But if the girl desires to wake up, she will wake up. Send the Grim Reaper my regards. He should be arriving soon._ ” 

Soul pulled Maka in closer to himself as the witch hunched over. For a moment, the green in her cloak flared, and Soul thought his tired brain was finally giving up, but the witch then dissolved into a flurry of green leaves and was whisked away by an invisible source of wind. 

Now Soul was alone in the ruined spa. He felt a warm, sticky wetness somewhere inside his jacket and his wrist ached like a bitch, but all he could bring himself to do was hold Maka and pray that the fluttering in her chest didn’t get snuffed out- taking his brave, smart, stupid, stubborn, kind partner with it. 

~~~

It felt like a century or two passed before the ambulances came.

“Sir, are you okay? Did you hit your head?” A paramedic with a ponytail leaned over him. 

“No. I’m fine. Just a few paper cuts. My meister, is she-” Soul tried to get up, peering past the paramedic. 

“We’re providing her the best possible care we can right now,” The paramedic reassured him.

When Soul shifted to try and get a better view of what was happening to Maka, he immediately winced at a sharp pain in his wrist. When he looked down he realized it was a little swollen but not deformed, probably just sprained when he caught his fall. _Shut up, wrist, Maka’s more important._

He caught a glimpse of a gurney being wheeled in, and one of the EMTs carrying something that looked like a green scuba diver’s tank. 

Soul complied as the medic poked and prodded him, asking him a bunch of questions he didn’t see the point of, but aside from his wrist and a laceration to his ribs, no other injuries were to be found. 

~~~

Soul’s cut hadn’t ended up being too deep after all. With all worries of collapsed lungs and internal damage subsided, the worst thing Soul had to contend with was probably just having yet another scar on his abdomen. A few more, and he’d look less like a guy and more like a walking quilted blanket. Or like Stein, which was far worse. 

They hadn’t needed to fully knock him out to sew it shut this time. Whatever concoction they were pumping into him still made him loopy, though. He still knew Maka might be in trouble, but right now it didn’t seem like such a big deal. The temperature in the room felt good, and it felt great to have oxygen in his lungs. 

There was a surgical sheet between Soul’s face and the doctor suturing him shut. He wondered if he’d gotten something stronger than painkillers when he thought he saw his old classmate Kim watching him before remembering she was a nursing intern. She and another nurse stared at whatever action was going on at his lower right ribcage area with such intensity that it made Soul wonder if Maka would get jealous. 

_Maka…_ his head lolled up so he was staring up at the fluorescent lights. When he squinted they looked all streak-y. They looked beautiful. Super bright. Could fluorescent lights be beautiful or was it just the sedatives talking? He didn’t know, but he hoped Maka’s room had lights too. 

~~~

Soul was able to stand within a couple of hours, which he should’ve been happy about. He had a brace around his wrist that the doctor said he could take it off in a day or two. He should’ve been relieved. But with the happy juice they’d been pumping him full of wearing off, physical numbness was replaced by nausea and dull throbbing all over. Mentally, the weight of his reality crashed onto him like a sack of bricks. _Maka._

She hadn’t been moving when he last saw her in the strip mall. They’d wheeled her out in a freaking _stretcher_ . He couldn’t shake the mental image of her, frail and unmoving, lost in a tangle of tubes and beeping monitors. The plant witch said she hadn’t been aiming to kill her, but since when did he trust witches? Well, he trusted some witches but definitely not _that_ witch. 

When a nurse came in to remove his IV, Soul could scarcely work out a polite “hello” before questions about Maka crowded his mouth. 

“Maka Albarn?” The nurse shuffled some papers, “She’s stable. We were concerned about head trauma, but everything appears to be perfectly normal. She has a few bumps and scrapes, but she’s young and healthy and will make a full physical recovery.” 

“I want to see her.”

“I’m afraid you can’t do that.”

Soul stared at the nurse in dismay. “What- why?”

“Because I need to take this IV out of your arm. Please try to hold still.”

“Oh. My bad.” 

Once he was detached from whatever hospital appliances they’d hooked him into, Soul made a beeline for Maka’s room. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to sooth the churning in his gut. 

There she lay on the bed, head tilted slightly towards the window. Just enough light came through the blinds that made her ashen blond hair glow. 

Soul’s breath caught in his throat. He could’ve said a million things. How much she meant to him, how the past couple hours have been hell not knowing how she was. At last, he settled on, “Hey."

Maka didn’t say anything back. Soul realized her eyes were closed, like she was asleep. Was she resting?

“She hasn’t regained consciousness yet.” The nurse explained.

“That would’ve been nice to know before I came in,” Soul complained, but immediately felt bad. The nurse was probably overworked. “She’ll wake up soon, though. Right?”

The nurse pursed her lips. “We haven’t determined the cause of her condition, unfortunately. Only that, most likely, it’s not trauma-related.”

“Of course it’s not trauma. A fucking _witch_ did this to her.”

“We’ve contacted a specialist in supernatural ailments who will be able to run some more tests, considering the circumstances of her condition.”

Soul could only think of one person who could be considered such a specialist. 

As if summoned by that very thought, Soul heard a monotone “Hello,” from behind him.

Stein had explained to Soul that Maka’s soul was still in there, somewhere. It was as if she were sleeping. Dreaming, in fact, as opposed to being in a coma. That should have made Soul feel better, but he couldn’t stand the fact that her mind was still active, trapped in her own body. It probably didn’t quite work that way, but it frustrated him to no end. Soul had no way to tell her that he was there by her side. 

“You’ll be pleased to know that Tim Johnson walked out yesterday.” Stein told him. 

“The hell is Jim?”

“ _Tim_ Johnson. The young man you and Ms Albarn recently became acquainted with. I believe he was causing some mischief at Little Slab City?”

“Oh.” Soul blinked. In all that had happened, he’d frankly forgotten about the kid. “That’s good.” 

“I’m letting you know because, if your meister here is under a similar affliction, she may follow suit and regain consciousness within a day or two.”

A day or two. He looked at his meister’s sleeping face. A day or two, and he could see those green eyes again. He could do that.

“I’ll be here for it.” Soul said. 

~~~

Their friends trickled in and out throughout the next day. 

The top of Death the Kid’s head poked up from over the extravagant bouquet. He had presented Maka with an arrangement of exactly eight gigantic black and white roses, arranged in a symmetrical pattern with a variety of other flowers Soul couldn’t name. Soul wouldn’t have counted the roses himself, but Kid made a point of mentioning their number to him multiple times. 

“Uh, thanks,” Soul said, “I don’t know how it helps, seeing as she’s unconscious and can’t see it, but thanks.”

“Eight is a mystical number. It spurs healing, regrowth, good will.” Kid looked out the window wistfully, “Even as a Death God, I must accept that there are some things none of us may ever know. The universe works in mysterious ways.”

“Right on,” Soul said. 

The bouquet was placed on the hospital nightstand. Soul was grateful that Liz and Patty had gone the more modest route of making a handmade “get well” card, because he wasn’t sure how much more the nightstand could physically hold. 

They talked for a little while. Soul knew Kid had a great deal of respect for Maka, a sort of camaraderie, probably even more than he had with the young Grim Reaper in spite of him being a Death Scythe. At last, Kid got a buzz on his phone: some other world-threatening disaster he had to deal with, Soul thought, and bid a polite farewell. 

Black Star visited soon after, with Tsubaki in tow. 

“ _Soul!_ ” 

Black Star hugged Soul so hard it nearly sent him back to the emergency room. Being a good six inches shorter than Soul didn’t stop Black Star from practically lifting him a foot off the ground. 

“ _Ack._ Thanks. Okay, thanks, buddy.” Soul choked out, patting him on the back.

“It’s just so… _sad!_ ” Black Star sobbed into Soul’s shoulder. “Maka’s all KO’d and… she can’t see what a big star I am…” 

Soul’s gaze drifted to Black Star’s gift: a framed, autographed poster of himself. Soul had leaned it on the far end of the wall, facing Maka, but not before Black Star made him promise that he’d hang it above her bed at the soonest possible opportunity.

“So I can watch over her,” Black Star had explained, “Every lost traveler needs to follow the north star home. I'll be her star. The North Black Star.”

“Somehow,” Soul said, “Even if she’s in a coma, I think she knows you’re here. You’re pretty hard to ignore.” 

“ _Thank you!_ ”

Tsubaki had brought him a hot thermos of tea. It was the first thing that Soul had been gifted, and he felt an unexpected wave of gratitude wash over him.

“It must be difficult,” Tsubaki said sympathetically, “Maka is lucky to have you right now.”

Soul nodded, not really knowing what to say. The earnestness in Tsubaki’s doe eyes made him feel a little self-conscious, like she saw something in himself even he couldn’t. 

~~~

When Soul slept, his dreams were confused and feverish. Sometimes, he’d see Maka’s face and feel a brief serenity wash over him, like being in the eye of a hurricane. When he’d wake up he’d forget the details and feel more tired than before he’d even fallen asleep. 

At last, a day or two had passed. Soul took the wrist brace off and flexed his hand experimentally. It felt fine. Sweaty, but fine. He was glad he spent the better part of the past couple of days inside, otherwise he’d have a weird tanline there. 

Unlike his wrist, Maka didn’t show any signs of improvement. 

It was late at night when he’d peeled the brace off. No one was around but Maka, and Soul was grateful for the privacy. He never liked playing for an audience of more than one. 

One leg slung over the other, and in a flash, flesh and bone was replaced by rows of black and white keys. 

“Nice to have both hands back, at least.” He said, “Any requests?”

Maka didn’t say anything.

“Didn’t think so.” His fingers trickled down the keys, a little slow at first. The music sounded a little lost, a little lonely to his ears, but maybe a little hopeful too.

~~~

  
  


When Spirit first walked in, Soul wanted to be mad at him. It had been nearly an entire week since his only daughter had been wounded, what the hell took him so long? What could be more important than that? It turned out, Spirit had visited Maka once before at some point while Soul was still getting his own injury sown up. Since then he’d been busy. Death Weapon duties, Spirit said vaguely. He’d said it like Soul himself wasn’t a Death Weapon. Only later Soul realized that the older Death Scythe was probably trying to spare his feelings, in his own weird roundabout way: if Spirit had gone and outright said he was doing something useful, like trying to track down the witch that had cursed Maka, Soul would’ve felt like even more of a useless waste than he already did. 

He’d always had a weird relationship with Spirit. When he and Maka had made the nature of their relationship as something a little more than meister/weapon, at first he’d nearly cut his head off over taking her “purity” or something (what century was it?) A week later, he’d been yelling at Soul to “put a ring on it” (that one was harsher in hindsight). Soul mostly learned to tune him out much like Maka did. 

But something tugged at Soul’s gut like pity; he gave Spirit some alone time with his daughter without too much of a fuss. 

Now, Soul just awkwardly leaned against the wall next to her door, arms crossed and back slouched over. He was just glad there wasn’t a “no loitering” sign in sight. 

At last, Spirit walked out. Soul blinked at him blearily. His neck was stiff and hurt more than his actual injuries- probably still sore from dozing off on the chair by Maka’s bed again. Spirit’s lips moved but Soul couldn’t process what he was saying. 

“Huh?” 

“I said,” he repeated himself, “You should go home. Get some rest. You look like death.”

Soul thought he might have detected a twinge of sympathy in the Death Scythe’s eyes, which made him scowl. Something about taking advice from the man who had repeatedly cheated on his wife didn’t sit well with him, no matter how tempting the advice may have been. 

~~~

Any other time, Soul would’ve probably just scrolled on his phone for entertainment, but with Maka here, conscious or not, it felt almost sacrilegious, and not to mention _rude_. He tried to avoid being on his phone when they’d eat dinner together too, after all. 

Soul grabbed a random book from the waiting room. It had a picture of some guys in a rowboat in tumultuous white water, and was pretty much the only article of literature that wasn’t a children’s picture book, a golf magazine, or an overtly religious pamphlet. 

He read a few chapters out loud- it ended up being an autobiography about a guy who took a boat through the Grand Canyon. It was interesting enough, but Soul’s main takeaway was being grateful he didn’t know anything about canyons or boats. 

At last, Soul finally got sick of hearing his own voice. He put the book away. 

~~~

Stein would still visit a few times a day. Today, he didn’t visit, but nursing intern Kim did. She’d looked at some of the monitors and scribbled some notes down. If it had been anyone other than Kim, it probably would have taken twenty, thirty minutes max. But she went on some tangent about her senior thesis, blissfully oblivious of Soul’s throbbing headache. At last, another nurse poked her head in and called her away.

Minutes later, the door squeaked open again.

For a second, Soul thought that Kim had returned and was about to tell her to go bug someone else, but the new visitor was much shorter than Kim, and much fluffier. Blair walked in with her face stuffed by something gray-brown, fuzzy, and very dead.

She deposited her gift at Soul’s feet. If his stomach had anything in it, he would have gagged.

“Shit, _Blair!_ ” Soul hissed, nudging it away with the corner of his foot, “The hell is that?”

“I found some lunch for you!” She said cheerfully.

“Christ, Maka talked to you about killing native wildlife. And it’s covered in diseases.”

“No diseases! I caught it fresh. Eat up!”

“I’m not eating a dead rodent.”

Blair rolled her eyes. Her tail was fluffed out in frustration, making it look a bit like a pipe cleaner. “Sometimes, I swear, you can be _such_ a kittypet!”

“A _what?_ ”

Blair hopped onto his lap, “If you’re not going to eat my present, you’ve still got to eat something! When Maka wakes up, she isn’t going to be happy to see her scythe boy turned into a skeleton!” She prodded his ribcage with her front paw- thankfully the uninjured side, but it still hurt.

“Fine, fine.” Soul swatted her away, “I’ll go eat.”

After using a tissue to carefully toss the dead rodent into a conveniently placed “biohazard” bag, he cast one look back at his sleeping partner. “Sorry, gotta run,” He said, “Blair is yelling at me.”

The hospital cafe would have been the easy option. He’d eaten there before. A meal of watery peas, half-mummified chicken breast, and mashed potato paste so thick they stuck to the inside of Soul’s throat. It was a meal that gave Soul a sudden pang of sympathy for poor Nursing Intern Kim. He hoped that she had someone to pack her lunch everyday. 

Soul wagered to try the fast food place across the street instead.

Blair the cat weaved between his legs as he crossed. “How do you keep getting into the hospital, anyways?” He glanced down at the cat, “I thought animals weren’t allowed.”

Blair just gave him a cheeky cat grin. 

By the time Soul got to the cashier, he was surprised and a little ashamed to find himself winded by the short walk. The cut on his ribs twinged, but he was able to place his order while generally seeming like a normal healthy person. 

Soul took a seat at the table. He got a fried fish sandwich- what type of fish, the cashier wasn’t sure. He cut off a little piece of the fillet for Blair to have, a wordless apology that he didn’t appreciate her gift as much as she’d hoped. It probably wasn’t much healthier than the hospital slop, but it was a whole lot greasier, which helped Soul almost enjoy it. 

He would have enjoyed his lunch a lot more if he hadn’t noticed a deep green cloak, swathed over the crooked back of a very old woman. 

Soul scooped up Blair so fast she barely had time to utter a surprised “mrow!”  
  
Soul wanted to pummel the witch, he would’ve loved nothing more than to turn _her_ into a dead rodent, but unlike his meister (whom he loved very dearly) Soul actually _did_ have survival instincts. He just chose not to listen to them most of the time. Today was one of the rare days when he listened to the voice in his head prodding him to _get out_.

With the cat in his arms, he made a hasty exit.

“What’s that all about?” Blair asked.

“Didn’t you sense her? With your cat-powers or whatever? That old woman was a witch.”

“So?”

“She’s the one Maka and I were hunting. When Maka... fell asleep.”

“Oh, okay!”

Blair hopped out of his arms. 

“Hey witch!” She hissed, “Don’t you play rough with my kittens! That’s _my_ job!!”

Soul whipped around and let out a, “ _Shit!_ ”

The cloaked witch stared straight at him with darkness-shrouded eyes. He couldn’t see her face, but he could make out tiny pinpricks of light where her eyes would be. It made the hair on his back stand on end. He clenched his fists.

Soul wanted to tell the witch a million things. _Fuck you and your entire bloodline! Go deepthroat a saguaro cactus! I hope every yellow light you pull up to turns red!_

“How’s your online shop going,” Soul said dumbly. 

“ _Very well,_ ” the witch said, “ _But you’re not interested in that, are you?_ ”

“Nah,” he admitted. 

“ _My spell on your ex-wife is nothing more than a whisper at this point,_ ” The witch said.

“Please stop calling her my ex-wife.” 

“ _Perhaps she is in a labyrinth, of sorts? I cannot say for certain. Perhaps she needs to let go of something. Or something needs to let go of her._ ”

“Oo-kay.” Vague. Soul looked at her, “You come all this way to tell me some dumb riddle?”

“ _No,_ ” The witch said, “ _I’m on vacation. I have a startup in San Francisco now, but the Mexican food is overpriced and dissatisfactory._ ” 

Apparently, that was all she had to say to him. Once again, she dissolved into leaves, leaving Soul and Blair alone. 

~~~

Nights were always the worst. During the day, friends visited. Nurse Kim would give him the hottest gossip about which nurse was getting with which surgeon. Even the window showed better times: people who had once been bedridden riding out on wheelchairs, new moms leaving with their kids, long-separated friends or lovers hugging for the first time outside in who knew how long. Nothing like that at night. Behind Soul, the ever-present fluorescent lights glowed, never sleeping, not looking so beautiful anymore. Out the window, he could only see the lonely glow of the parking lot lights fending for themselves in the darkness. 

Soul rubbed his face blearily. His cheeks were prickly. There was a point when he'd been so stoked to be able to grow facial hair, but now he was just annoyed he had to shave yet again. His hair was probably a nasty, greasy mess, too. He wished nothing more than to be at home in his bed. Preferably with Maka next to him in it. But if Maka wanted to be in the other bedroom, that was cool too. 

Late night always brought out the worst in Soul’s thoughts. Everything looked bleak at three in the morning. His encounter with the witch kept repeating in his head. Was Maka trapped? Had something trapped her? It made his insides twist painfully. How could he save her from something he couldn’t even see or touch?

It wasn’t totally dark out, Soul realized. There was a murky sort of glow. 

On an impulse, Soul stiffly got up. His joints ached as if he’d aged fifty years in the span of just a couple weeks. 

The moon hovered low in the sky, orb-shaped and purply-black against the stars. It stared at him. Soul stared back. It was full that night. A month ago, he’d been in his bedroom, warm and cozy with Maka huddled by his side.

“What’re you looking at?” He asked it groggily. 

He slumped back into his chair. One leg shifted into a piano. Soul tapped one key. D sharp minor; a sharply ominous sound that sent involuntary chills down his spine. Soul brought his other hand up to the keyboard and tried to clear his mind, letting his fingers channel something _else_. 

It was a lament, eerie and beautiful as if sung by a ghost. Soul wasn’t sure where it had come from: it didn’t feel quite _his_. He narrowed his eyes towards the window, where he knew the moon hovered somewhere, just out of sight. 

It was a familiar presence, but somehow the familiarity only made Soul more uneasy. He could feel it coil in the corner, watching him. The worst part was, he was just afraid of it as it was of him.

“Maka, please wake up,” He murmured. 


	19. The less that I know, the deeper I go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka opens a door.

Maka managed to walk herself out of the graveyard, but the moment her feet crossed its border, all the strength drained from her legs and she half-sat, half-collapsed down to the ground. The iron grates of the fence dug into her back uncomfortably, but she didn’t have anywhere else to slump. 

Crona sat next to her quietly, neatly tucking their legs close to their body. Maka could feel their furtive glances towards her, but they didn’t say anything. Ragnarok wasn’t with them, he might have wandered off somewhere.

There was a long moment of stillness. The gray clouds hung heavy. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath. 

“You really miss your friend,” Crona finally said. 

“I failed him.” 

Crona paused, their fingers scraped into the dirt like they were trying to think of the right thing to say. 

“We’ve been running around a lot. In circles. To and fro. But he’s never really been that far away to begin with. He’s been right here.” 

“He’s not.” Maka thought about her dreams, how he’d felt so close, “He’s not even real anymore.”

“He is real,” Crona insisted, “The reason you can’t see him is because your head is full of all this fake stuff!” 

Maka didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. I  _ let _ you run around in circles...”

“No, it’s okay.” Maka said quietly. “I think I probably knew since the beginning too, deep down.” Maka thought of the witch, and her apple. The witch had said, one bite, and Maka would know the answer. The answer to what? If her question had been, “would I be really bummed if my boyfriend died,” Maka realized the answer would be a hard “yes.”

" If you knew, why did you stay?”

“I guess I made a mistake,” Maka said, “I guess I didn't want to face it, I thought it’d be easier to pretend, for a while.”

“This isn’t a place you can stay forever.”

“Yeah,” She glanced at Crona. “So? Are you real, then?”

“I don’t know. I’m at least as real as when we first met in the church.”

~~~

The lights were out in Maka’s apartment when they arrived back, making everything look cast in gray.  


“Are you sure?” Maka asked.

“I’m sure.” Crona nodded.

The teal door loomed in front of her. It looked like a normal door in every way, but the anticipation of something boiling on the other side forced it to unnaturally stretch and loom far above Maka’s head. She gulped.

Maka reached out to touch the knob, wincing at what felt like a static shock.

“Okay.” She said, “I’ll open this now.”

“Yes.”

“Right now. Just need to turn this knob.”

Crona stared at her, perplexed.

“Sorry, just procrastinating.” 

The door seemed to be bitter about being neglected for a few weeks, as it opened with a complaining _creeeeeeeak_. 

Soul’s room was dark, curtains obscuring any sunlight. Maka stepped in, silent save for the sound of her footsteps. It looked pretty much like she’d remembered it. A collage of posters were hung up- Soul usually didn’t bother to take the old ones down, leaving his wall a fossil record of whatever bands or cult movies he’d been obsessed with over the years. His acoustic bass and electric keyboard were piled awkwardly in the corner, as if he hadn’t had time to properly put them away, but otherwise the room was neat. 

Absently, Maka walked forward. She had the sensation of returning home from a long trip. She approached his bed first. The comforter on top was made, though a little crooked. Maka tugged at its corner, straightening it up. She had the irrational impulse to bury her face in the comforter to see if it still smelled like him, but figured that wouldn’t be very appropriate with Crona ten steps behind her.

Maka suddenly noticed a golf-ball sized lump that shouldn’t have been there. Curious, she peeled the blankets off, revealing a small velvety black box. Maka didn’t have to open it to know the precious item it held. 

“Maka, you’re getting distracted.” Crona’s voice sounded far away. 

Maka ignored them, gingerly lifting the black box. The lid popped up when she pressed up with her thumb. The ring was minimalist. A thin silver band decorated with three small round jade-colored stones arranged in a triangle. It vaguely reminded her of the holes in Lord Death’s mask. It was an elegant piece of jewelry, but at the same time so simple. How could something so small carry such a great meaning?

That was it.

Soul’s _courage_. He’d run away from his old life, his family, but he hadn’t run away from her.

Maka didn’t know if she wanted to caress it or chuck it out the window for all the trouble it’s caused. Maka decided to slide it in her pocket. Her hands brushed against fine silk where her jacket pocket should have been. Where her ordinary clothes covered her a moment ago, now she was in a familiar sheer black gown. Soul’s bedroom was gone; it was the Black Room. It seemed brighter, somehow. The floor was tiled black and white. The cold metal burned her skin when she curled her hand around it.

“Maka.”

Soul stood in the direction she had come through, framed by ceiling-high windows like those she would see in the front of a cafe. He wore a well-fitting white tuxedo. Maka hadn’t seen him in that color suit before, but she thought it complimented his complexion. 

He didn’t say anything. The silence of the air was filled with a half-hearted trickle of piano notes from an unknown source. Barely even a full song, it was more like the requiem of a long-forgotten memory, coming in fuzzy bits and pieces. 

“What are you still doing here?” He asked.

“What do you think? I’m trying to find you! I finally got everything I need to bring you back...”

Soul shook his head slowly, not meeting her eyes. She couldn’t figure out why. At first, she thought he’d been wearing a red dress shirt beneath his jacket, but then she realized that the crimson blooming at his chest had nothing to do with the fabric he was wearing.

“It was never about saving me,” He said, “It’s about saving yourself.”  
  
“You’re hurt!” Maka exclaimed, as if stating the obvious would help anything. Drips of it appeared on the floor. When she didn’t look directly down the red spots could have been withered rose petals, curling up on the white tile. Desperately, her mind went to her jacket- maybe she could somehow tie it around his torso- until she remembered she was in that damned useless black dress.

Maka grabbed him by the shoulders just in time as his knees buckled beneath his weight. Even though Soul was taller than she was, he was surprisingly light and Maka propped up his deadweight with little trouble, ignoring the sticky warm red liquid that tainted her dress. Her fingers found their way to his wrist, feeling his radial pulse flutter weakly against her touch.

A wetness met her feet- sickly warm. Maka looked down expecting to see red, but only saw a tar-black substance bleeding out from the spaces between the tiles. Soul sort of slumped out of her grip, landing in the tar. 

“Soul!” When Maka reached down to shake his limp body, the tar engulfed him. Try as she might to dredge something, anything, up, she could find nothing solid except for the tile floor itself. It was like he’d vanished. Dissolved, maybe. Gone.

Unperturbed, she continued to try and claw at the cracks in the tile. Maybe if she could just get a little further- it was no use. The harder she fought, the more black liquid seemed to fill the room. What was once a swamp now felt it was battering her with ocean swells, until the inky water was well above her head and she could barely see her own hands in front of her. 

_You need to let go. Just wake up._

The voice seemed to echo in her brain rather than in her ears, but she ignored it. She couldn’t quite tell who it belonged to. 

She’d been underwater for long, even though her lungs burned for oxygen she didn’t seem to be able to black out or do much of anything, really. She couldn’t move at all, she realized. Every muscle became stiff against her own will. When she sunk to the bottom, she could feel the floor against her back, only it was no longer marble, but wood. 

The black water was gone, but she still couldn’t breath. When she looked up, she could see a patch of brilliantly blue sky- she was in a dark hole and freedom was only about six feet above her. It would have been easy to climb out of the hole if her arms and legs would just listen to her. A gathering of figures loomed above the hole; dark, amorphous bodies and tiny pinpricks of light for eyes. When she focused really hard on one, she could almost recognize it as a familiar face: her father, Kid, Tsubaki, but it would always flicker back to the emotionless dark blob. Only one stood out, the one directly in front of her feet. It wasn’t as amorphous as the rest, sharply outlined against blue. He had an X-shaped mark over his face and grotesquely bulging googly eyes. His emotionless inky face broke as he gave her an artificially wide grin, like a child getting their photo taken on yearbook day. His hands were clenched around the shaft of a shovel. 

“No, wait, there’s some sort of mistake-” Maka managed to break through the lockjaw, but it wasn’t enough to stop what was already in motion. Too late, she noticed the body-length board of wood to her right, and how it was now closing in on her, maneuvered by an unseen set of hands. 

_Fight it_ , she growled at herself. She could feel tingling in her fingers, sensation returning. Her fingernails dragged down into the wood. 

Not fast enough, all she could do was watch as the blue sky shrunk to a sliver and then to just the faintest crack as the door closed over her only path to freedom.

“No!” Maka scrambled, but there wasn’t even enough room in her coffin to sit up, “ _No_!” 

She clenched her fists and, with what little leverage she could manage in the cramped space, hit the wooden door with all her might. It wouldn’t budge. Banging of flesh against hardwood filled her ears. She didn’t notice her fists were damaged until a warm stickiness dripped down her forearms. When her hands failed, she kicked out with her feet, trying to budge the impenetrable wood until her body was too exhausted to do much other than hyperventilate. Anger gave way to panic, and then to helplessness. She was closed in, completely and utterly trapped. Maka kept trying to close her eyes, picture something other than the coffin. The Grand Canyon, Tokyo, Death City, even that stupid gas station shop.

Maka shut her eyes, hard.

The sleepy sun hovered low on the horizon. She was standing on the balcony of the DWMA, not alone. Soul leaned over on the railing next to her, staring out. Any other time, and she would’ve chided him for staring right at the sun. 

“So we’re back here, huh?” Soul said. 

“It was a nice day...”

“We’ve had quite a few of those.”

“It’s the last day before you… disappeared. When everything was nice and normal between us.”

Soul actually laughed. “Nothing’s ever been _normal_ between us. Or anyone in this city, for that matter. I think you’d probably hate it if we were normal. You would’ve dumped me years ago.”

“I would _not_ ,” Maka fumed, “Quit making me sound like a _Not Topic_ slogan. Besides, you know what I mean.”

“Nothing’s ever normal,” Soul insisted, “Not until you’re dead, at least. Being alive is the weirdest shit there is. Stuff keeps changing. Tomorrow’s never going to be the same as today. You can fight it or accept it, but it’s going to happen either way.” 

“You’re telling me I should have said yes.”

Soul shook his head, “I’m saying you’re dense for thinking things wouldn’t ever change. Yes, no, who cares, as long as it’s for the right reasons. Now, me, personally? I’m just a figment of your imagination, so it doesn’t make a difference to me.”

“You’re pretty believable,” Maka observed, “You fake not caring almost as well as the real Soul.”

Soul looked almost flattered, “I guess you knew me pretty well.”

She was happy there. She should have been happy. But the sunset wasn’t real, the balcony wasn’t real, even Soul wasn’t really real. It was all a dream, a memory. When she closed her eyes and pushed her hands forward she could still feel the unyielding pressure of the coffin door. 

“You know there’s only one way left to go,” Soul said.

“You’re going to tell me to wake up, aren’t you?” Maka wrapped her hands around her elbows, bitter. “I know I should, but I’m scared.”

“It’s scary,” Soul agreed, “but you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. You gave me my courage.”

Maka didn’t say anything.

“Letting go. That’s what you’re afraid of, right? You’re a meister, you’ve always got to be in charge, huh? It’s rough letting someone else take the lead, admitting you rely on another person to protect you instead of being the one doing the protecting.”

“Maybe so.” Maka muttered. “I’m comfortable now, though. I know you’re here, one way or another.” She hunched over the railing, letting the tips of her shoes dangle over the ledge.

“Things were good. So good. After Mama and Papa split up, I knew I’d wanted a weapon partner, but not so much a... _Partner_ -partner. Things happened, _good_ things.” She smiled self-consciously, “I didn’t know some dumb boy could make me the happiest I’ve ever been. But now all of a sudden it’s like we’ve stepped onto a tightrope. And like, whatever’s on the other side might be some beautiful amazing thing I could never even imagine. But I keep thinking about how either of us could stumble and fall off, like my parents did.”

“Do you trust him?” Soul asked, “The real Soul.”

Maka nodded, slowly.

“He asked you to wake up,” He pointed out.

“That would be asking me to leave what’s left of him. I can’t do that.” She stared at the ring in her hand. She wasn’t much for jewelry, but it was quite beautiful.

“You’re not stupid enough to believe I’m him. You’re fighting to keep me alive, but I’m just a memory. Let go. Wake up.”

“Can’t we just stay here for a little while longer?”

Soul sighed. “If that’s what you want. I can’t do anything about it.” 

He looked back out at the sunset. She reached over to put an arm over his shoulders, but her hand met an invisible forcefield. She wasn’t on the balcony. She was in a coffin. There was no breeze, only dry air sour from her own breath. 

For the first time in a while, Maka let herself relax. Let go. Nothing had changed, but when she looked at the coffin’s edge, she realized it had a doorknob. The answer was right there. Her fingertips danced on the cool metal. It was so easy to just turn and step out, yet somehow she felt like she was standing on the preciphase of the Grand Canyon. One step and she’d _fall, fall, fall._


	20. Forget the Love We’ve Never Felt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crona says goodbye.

Crona looked down at Maka as if she were a precious gem. Untouchable, encased in glass, she might as well have been. 

The room was pretty, Crona thought, beautiful, even. Lush plants and flowers wove around marble columns, not unlike where Maka had found Crona in the first place, only instead of obsidian, everything was carved out of pure white marble. Maka lay in what looked like a coffin, only it was made entirely of glass so clear that Crona would’ve thought they could reach out and touch her, if it were not for their reflection on its pristine surface.

Her eyes were closed, her skin was more pale than normal, looking almost gray in contrast to the brilliant rainbow-colored bouquet in her unmoving hands. She wasn’t dead, though. Only sleeping. Crona knew that much. 

“You finally have what you wanted. A friend who won’t leave you.” Crona looked up to see Crona speak. Two Cronas, Crona realized with a shock. _Uh oh_ , they could barely deal with just the one. 

Second Crona smiled, a grin that was probably wider than the original Crona ever could manage. 

“Yeah,” First Crona agreed with reluctance, “It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time.” 

“What are you going to do first?” Second Crona asked, “You could talk to her. Tell her your name, maybe your favorite color or your favorite song. Then we could brush her hair, put her in a pretty dress.”

Crona blushed hard at that last part, “I-I don’t know.”

“We could also just sit here in silence. Enjoy her company.” Second Crona amended. “That’s all you really wanted in the first place, didn’t you?”

“It’s been lonely,” Crona admitted, “On the moon. It’s what I deserved, I suppose. After what I’ve done. I can’t be around other people. I _shouldn’t_ be around other people. Except for her.”

“And now you’re finally with her.”

Crona stared at Maka’s face. She was older, her hair was longer and fell around her shoulders, but otherwise she really hadn’t changed all that much since they last saw her. 

They watched.

They watched, and waited.

“This isn’t what _she_ wanted, though.” Crona realized.

They looked up at second Crona before speaking again, “Haven’t you listened to anything she’s been saying?”

“She’s not saying anything, right now.” Second Crona pointed out, “She’s at peace. That’s better off than you are.”

First Crona shook their head. “She _can’t_ say anything right now, can she?”

“Does it matter?”

“It’s been so long since I’ve last seen her. For a while, it wasn’t even like she was a real person. Just a friend I made up in my head. She wanted what I wanted, she would do what I would want her to do…”

Crona thought the second time they had met. She saw something in Crona no one had seen in them before- a friend. She’d reached out because she wanted to, not because anyone had told her to. 

Crona looked at the palm of their hand. Since visiting Maka from the moon, they’d felt lighter, somehow. More free. Now, a dark something slumbered deep inside them. Their limbs felt heavy, as if lead were pumping through their veins. With a single thought, an obsidian black sword manifested in their hand: Ragnarok. 

“She’s not my friend if she didn’t choose to be here,” Crona said, “If I kept her here I’d be no different than Lady Medusa.”

Crona gripped the sword and raised it high, its tip aimed at the glass above Maka’s heart. With a heave, they brought the point down the glass. A spiderweb of cracks expanded from the brunt of the strike.

“ _Aaaugh!_ ” Crona screamed. A sharp pain gripped their own chest, as if the sword had broken through their ribs, rather than the glass. 

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Other Crona observed, “Letting go of someone you love.”

It _did_ hurt, but it wasn’t the worst pain they’d ever felt. Not by a mile. Crona struck again, this time more carefully so as to not shower the coffin’s inhabitant with sharp glass. The shockwave of metal against glass caused the thin gold that held the planes of glass together to deform. 

Gingerly, Crona lifted the lid of the coffin.

Other Crona didn’t say anything, but Crona thought that they detected the ghost of something like an approving nod.

~~~

Maka was back at the salt flats. She knew she’d only be there for a short while before she had to move on to the next place. What was the next place? Death? How had she gone and died without noticing?

The vast expanse of shallow water acted as a mirror to the sky: perfectly still and clear. She couldn’t quite tell if it was day or night. Maybe neither. The horizon was lilac and the moon hovered low and white amongst a sprinkling of stars, but it was still bright enough for her to see every detail of Crona’s face.

They both sat in the water, perhaps a few feet apart. In real life, sitting fully clothed in three inches of water probably would be uncomfortable, but Maka knew this was a dream. This water wasn’t real, the salt flats weren’t real, not even the stars were real. 

“This is the end of your dream,” Crona said.

“Am I dying? Is that why you’re here?”

Crona shook their head. “You’re not dying. Not anymore.”

Maka should have felt a wave of relief, but it never came. Coming back to life felt much harder than giving in to death.

“Why did you come here, then?” Maka asked.

“I’m used to being lost in my own mind. Even if you didn’t mean to call me, I’m glad I came. It’s much nicer being lost in your mind, for a change. I wish my dreams were this calm."

“I don’t know if I’m ready to wake up.” Maka said. “I don’t want him to be gone.”

“He’s alive,” Crona insisted, “You’ve always known that.”

Maka wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling them close to her chest. “That’s not what I mean. Someone doesn’t have to be dead to be gone.” Maka was about to add, _like my mother_ , but she stopped herself. 

It had hurt her in the past. Maybe it should still be hurting her. Was it a bad thing she didn’t miss her mother the way she used to? Maka still felt grief. It wasn’t for her mother, and it wasn’t quite for Soul, either, who’d never really been _gone_ at all. “Like you, Crona.” She realized, “You just… disappeared. You were alive, but I didn’t even know if you were, y’know, even _you_ anymore.” 

“I had to disappear,” Crona started.

“ _No you didn’t!_ We could’ve found another way! Or even if you absolutely had to, nothing? No emails or texts or anything?” Maka exhaled, surprised at her own burst of anger. She looked at Crona, expecting to see them shrink away from her, but they just observed her with big gray eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Maka exhaled, “Maybe I asked for too much, too fast.”

“I’m not like you. I’m not even like your friend Soul, or anyone else. I can’t deal with being around other people.” Crona lifted one hand. There was a bandage wrapped around their thumb, Maka had almost forgotten about the cut. Carefully, they unwrapped it, exposing a partially healed sliver. 

“In the end, this is _your_ dream. Your soul has a purifying effect... You can’t fix me, but at least you helped me make the best decisions I could. But in the end, it’s just a dream…” Crona squeezed the base of their thumb, forcing blood out of the cut. It came out black as ink, rolling down their wrist until dripping into the salty water.

“So that’s it?” Maka said helplessly, “Are you going away for good now? Or do I have to get a head injury or something to see you again?”

“It hurts, doesn’t it? Letting go of someone you love?”

Maka stared at the water’s surface.

Her mind wandered to her apartment, another lazy night with Soul. It was weird, for all their antics and adventures, it was the boring, everyday things she missed most. One night she’d been buried nose deep in a mystery novel up, leaning up against his side. He’d been reading a letter from his brother. She caught a peek: not enough to make out any words, but she remembered how odd it was for someone in their late twenties to be sending a letter instead of an email like a normal person, much less a letter handwritten in smooth calligraphy ornate enough to put your average holiday card to shame. She didn’t know what kind of person Wes Evans was, but she’d imagined he was an odd but charming kind of man. 

Maka felt a little twinge of something like longing. She didn’t have any brothers or sisters. The closest to a sibling she had was probably Black Star, but he lived ten minutes away and she still wasn’t completely sure he actually knew how to write anything other than his autograph. 

“You could send a letter once in a while,” Maka suggested. 

“Huh?”

“You sent that weird black letter.” Maka said, “You were talking about Asura, weren’t you? I don’t know if I could forgive Asura yet, but I’ve forgiven you, so…”

Crona seemed too stunned to say anything. 

“Yeah,” Maka grew more confident in the idea as she talked, “I know being on Earth is hard, but it’s not fair that you should be up on the moon all alone. At least this way you’ll have someone to talk to. I can tell you about our friends, and things I’ve read, and, uh, the weather… You could tell me about stars and the dumb things Ragnarok says. We’ll be penpals!” 

“Uh, umm…” Crona stammered. Maka looked over to see them shaking a little. She realized they were _crying_. 

“Oh! I’m sorry. If it’s a bad idea we don’t have to-”

“N-no…” Crona wiped one eye. Their lips trembled into a shaky smile. “I like it. I really, really like it. We’ll be _penpals_ …” 

It might have been Maka’s imagination, but the sky seemed to turn the slightest shade of pink. Dawn was coming. Something green bobbed in the water, breaking apart otherwise perfect stillness: the apple. It was half-eaten.

“You know what to do,” Crona said.

She did. Bracing herself for the sour flavor, she took a bite of the apple. 

“Goodbye, Maka.” They said.

“Not goodbye,” Maka insisted, “I’ll see you later.” 

“See you later,” Crona echoed.

Maka stared at the moon’s reflection in the flats. It rippled. Maka realized it wasn’t just the water- when she looked at the sky, the moon looked just as transient. At first it waned from one end, until it was half black, as if someone had taken scissors to it. The blackness grew and grew until the white was the shape of a grin, then a sliver, then there was no white left at all. When Maka looked back down next to her, Crona was gone. 

The black moon, outlined against a light sky, blurred. Maka blinked, hard. 

_Not goodbye, just I’ll see you later._


	21. Halfway to Certain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one dies.

The first time Maka woke up, she was in a dark room. Not _that_ dark room, just an unfamiliar yet ordinary room at night, with the lights turned out. 

There was a weight on her lap. She was sentient enough to realize Soul had slumped over onto her and was apparently asleep, but too dazed to be surprised about it. Weakly, she reached out one hand to run her fingers through his hair. He was out like a light. 

“Don’t drool on me…” Was the last thing Maka muttered before her eyelids shut of their own accord. 

~~~

The second time Maka woke up, Soul was no longer in the room. She wasn’t alone, however. A head above her was silhouetted against fluorescent lights. Maka blinked, forcing her eyes to focus. Smooth, pink hair. 

“Crona…?” She managed. Her voice felt crackly, as if it hadn’t been used in a while. 

She reached out a shaky hand and put it on top of the person’s head. She realized their hair was short and neat compared to Crona’s.

“Nope, just me!” A cheerful grin hovered above her. Kim, her old classmate, clad in pastel colored scrubs to match her pink hair. “ _Crona?_ Now _there’s_ a name I haven’t heard in a minute. How are you feeling? Dizzy? Does anywhere hurt?”

“I-I’m fine, I think… Where am I?” Maka struggled to sit up, but her arms quaked like the limbs of a newborn fawn. There was an IV drip coiled around her arm.

“Death City Hospital,” Kim said, “You gave us quite the spook. Now could you answer some questions for me?”

Maka nodded. “What’s your name,” Kim asked.

Maka narrowed her eyes. “You know my name.”

“Sure do, Martha,” Kim reassured her.

“Maka.” Maka said, “My name’s Maka.”

Kim scribbled something onto her clipboard. “What year is it?” She asked.

“Kim, stop fooling around,” Maka said groggily, “Aren’t there any real nurses free?”

Kim pouted at her. “I _am_ a real nurse! A real nursing intern, anyways. Am I not good enough for you? And I _have_ to ask these questions to make sure your brain didn’t _melt_. You were out for a whole three weeks.” 

_Three weeks?_ Maka, resigned, answered her questions and didn’t even complain too much as Nurse Kim poked and prodded and shone bright lights into her eyeballs. 

“What happened? Where’s Soul?” Maka managed, “I don’t remember-” Before Maka could finish her sentence, a sudden rush of movement jolted her sentence and there was a pressure on her chest.

“Maka! Maka! You’re back!” Sparkling yellow eyes stared at her.

“Blair,” Maka managed. She was infinitely grateful Blair had chosen to take the form of a cat rather than an adult human woman. 

“Oh, oops! We tried to chase the cat out, but she kept persuading security to let her back in. I think this is the, um…” Kim looked at her clipboard, “Seventeenth time?”

Maka found that she didn’t especially mind Blair’s presence and was surprised at how much she had missed the purple cat. Maka stroked her back. Soft fur, not tar. She welcomed the warmth as Blair purred and curled up on Maka’s stomach. Maka couldn’t tear her eyes away from her cute little kitty eyes and her cute little whiskers and her cute little “3” mouth. Perhaps it was because the last “cat” she’d seen had a much meaner looking mug.

“Blair… you have the face of a cat… I’m so relieved….” Maka managed. Maybe Blair was too much for her, because Maka found herself slipping away again. 

~~~

The third time Maka woke up was to another familiar face, though still not the one she really wanted to see. 

“Morning, Professor Stein,” She said as casually as she could.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Stein said. 

One of the downfalls of being a relatively well-known figure in a small city was the fact that Maka could not avoid intimately knowing every doctor, nurse, janitor, and all their respective mothers. So much for patient confidentiality. 

“It’s quite the relief for everyone to see you awake. Anything less would have been a tremendous loss for the DWMA. Your body appears to be in working order, it was your soul we struggled with the most.”

“I was out for three weeks, huh.”

“Three weeks and two days, actually,” Stein said helpfully.

“Professor, what happened?”

Stein peered at her curiously. “I’d quite like to know the same thing. Of course, we have the reports from those present at the incident, and the first responders, but I’m rather interested in hearing your side.”

Maka looked down. “It’s kind of a long story. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Truthfully, Maka couldn’t _remember_ passing out. Her memories seemed pretty clear, which made it all the more confusing in knowing what was real and what wasn’t. She trusted Stein, but Maka wasn’t ready to talk about Crona to him quite yet. Or her personal life, for that matter.

Luckily, Stein clarified for her, “Do you recall November fourth? That was the day you and Eater were called out on an investigation.”

 _November fourth_. The day they fought the witch. A part of Maka was a little disappointed, it would’ve been nice if November second and third were all a part of her fun hallucination.

Maka recounted what she could recall of the events of that day. Her voice grew a little more fragile when she mentioned the fall of her partner, and the funeral service that followed. Maka had felt like it was normal at the time that events seemed to blur into each other, but that’s just how dreams were. 

“After the funeral, I…” Maka hesitated, “I’m not sure, I guess I just woke up in the hospital.”

Stein stared at her. His glasses did nothing to temper the sharpness of his eyes; Maka wondered if he could see something beyond just the shape of her soul. 

“Very well,” Stein decided, rolling back onto his chair, “The witch you and Eater attempted to fight specialized in toxic plants, specifically _solanaceae_. Or, in other words, nightshades. Some are known for their trance-inducing effects… Others would stop a man’s heart as quick as he’d look at them. The fact that you woke up at all is quite fortunate in that regard.” 

He adjusted his glasses before continuing, “The Nightshade Witch induced your trance. She spared your weapon, apparently she had something of a misunderstanding regarding the two of you. She apparently fled, and you and your partner were both brought here soon thereafter. Of course, attempted murder is still frowned upon in this part of the country, but we have had little success in tracking her down.”

Maka sat up, a little more awake, “Soul, is he here?”

“Yes, yes, he was here.” Stein confirmed nonchalantly, “He’s a well-behaved young man, much more so than your father was at his age. Although he would protest far too much every time I offered to cut your head open to see what was going on. We settled for CT scans instead. They got the job done, however pedantic they may be.”

Maka made a mental note to thank Soul later. Add that to the list.

“Where is he? Can I see him?” She looked around the room as if she half-expected Soul might be ducking behind the trash can or under the sink. 

“Last time he was gone from your room for more than an hour, one of the interns found him passed out on the bench by the vending machine.” 

“Well? Can someone get him?” Maka realized she sounded demanding. Mostly, she just hoped her insurance covered ‘extracting boyfriend from vending machine bench.’

“No need. Here he comes now.”

Maka gripped the hem of the blanket tightly at the clear echo of footsteps against the linoleum floor. The weakness of her body was overtaken with a shock of adrenaline, making her want to sprint or jump for joy or hide or all three. 

Soul walked in with an aluminum can in his hand. 

Not a dream, not a hallucination, but _Soul_.

“Hi,” She gave him a meek little wave. She felt about as astounded as he looked.

It looked like he tried to put his can on a countertop near the door, but misjudged its placement and ignored it as it fell to the ground with an echoing _clang_.

Soul rushed towards her wordlessly, catching her off guard as he swept her up and enveloped her in a hug. At first he held her delicately, as if he was worried she was made of glass. Maka wrapped her arms around his back, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, trying to pull him closer. He accepted the invitation and fully embraced her. Maka felt tears well up in the corners of her eyes. It had been so long since she’d been hugged- really _hugged_. For a second, she thought she hadn’t been hugged since the start of her nightmare. She realized it had been longer than that. She hadn’t been hugged since the sunset on the balcony. She had a million things she wanted to tell Soul but couldn’t get a single word off her tongue. 

She could feel spiky stubble as he put his face in the crook of her neck, as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days. She thought he felt skinnier, too. Maybe his shirt wasn’t super fresh. But Maka couldn’t care less about any of that, he was _here_. 

“Hey,” He said.

Soul pulled back a little so that they were face-to-face, foreheads barely touching. They stared at each other for a second, as if they were both seeing the sunrise for the first time after a long night. Soul leaned in slightly, pausing only when Maka put a fist in front of her mouth, clearing her throat.

“Uh, Doctor Stein.” She asked, “May I speak with my weapon?”

“Of course.”

Stein smiled, distant and serene as ever. They both stared at him.

“You mean privately. Ah, How convenient. I think I am receiving a phone call. You’ll have to excuse me.” Stein’s phone was decidedly not ringing, but neither of them cared to point it out as he walked out of the room.

“You’re here.” Maka breathed.

“I’m here.” He echoed. “Well, I didn’t really leave.”

Maka nodded. “I know. It felt like you did, for a while.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I had a nightmare about you. You were de-” She choked on that word, “You were gone. Because I made some stupid mistake.”

Soul shook his head. “I’m the one who messed up. I’m your weapon, Death Scythe or not. During that fight, everything was happening so quickly, and…” He furrowed his brows, “Suddenly, you were out. I didn’t even know what was happening, all I could think about is how I couldn’t keep you safe.”

“I probably should’ve thought about our fight with the witch through,” Maka admitted, “But that’s not what I was talking about. I’m sorry I had to put you through that,” Maka said, “Through… everything.”

Soul looked away. “Oh, boy,” He sighed, but knew better than to keep dancing around the topic. 

“I think, maybe after everything that happened, things were good for a while. I was afraid of that changing. Whenever my Papa talked about him and Mama it seemed like that was the place it went sour. Now that I’m older I realize it was a lot of things, things we’d never have to worry about because you’re  _ you _ and I’m me. But deep down I guess I always thought of it as sort of a death sentence...” 

Maka went on, “But things can’t always stay the same forever. I mean, we don’t  _ have _ to get hitched for that to happen, but… I think it’s a risk I wouldn’t mind taking. With you.” She paused, “It wouldn’t be the most impulsive thing I’ve done this month by a long shot.”

To her relief, Soul let out a chuckle. “There’d be a lot to talk about,” He pointed out.

“Hypothetically, yeah.”

“Like, hypothetically, do you want kids?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to be a parent,” Maka admitted.

“Seems like a lot of effort.”

“I do  _ really _ want a niece, though! A cool, sort of rebellious niece who secretly looks up to me.”

“I’ll give my brother a heads up.”

“Also, hypothetically, I might be kind of tired of my last name, I wouldn’t mind something new…”

Soul sucked in his teeth, “Well that’s a problem, then, because I hate my last name too.”

“We could compromise with a hyphen. Or we could just make a new one up.” Maka frowned. “You’ve done that before. Are we allowed to do that?”

“I think so.” 

With her free hand, Maka fidgeted with the edge of her blanket, averting her gaze shyly. “You know, the guy doesn’t have to be the one in the relationship to ask that question.” 

“I guess not.”

She pulled Soul’s hand closer, running her thumb over its back. She met his eyes. “Soul, will you marry me?”

“No.” He said flatly. 

“What! Why?” She jolted up, incredulous.

“Hm, well,” Soul pretended to think for a second, letting go of her hand to list the reasons off on his fingers, “You just woke up from a multi-day poison-induced coma, you haven’t showered in three weeks,  _ I  _ haven’t showered in three weeks, I think Hiro’s in the next room over with some sort of exotic stomach bug and I don’t want to associate that with our relationship-”

“Okay, those are enough reasons.” Maka deflated, “Wow, that  _ does  _ suck. At least now we’re even.”

“I guess we are.”

“Third time’s a charm?”

“Play your cards right and we’ll see, Albarn.” His tone was dry but his frown looked fake, like he was trying to hold back a genuine smile. 


	22. Oh, Someday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul Eater AU: No coronavirus

Recovery was as much a pain as recoveries usually are, but Maka was young and strong, with both Soul and her other friends with her every step of the way. 

Surprisingly, she grew to enjoy physical therapy with Black Star. Naturally, he somehow managed to make _yoga,_ of all sports, competitive and proceeded to outshine everyone else. But after Kid reprimanded her for the hundredth time for not distributing her weight symmetrically enough during _downward dog_ , Maka thought she was finally getting the hang of it. 

She’d been recommended to supplement meals with protein shakes. Not the tasty kind, but the kind with kale and ginger and ten or eleven assorted mysterious powders. Hers sat on the coffee table two thirds empty, while Soul’s sat about half empty. Maka didn’t think they were _that_ bad, really, but Soul complained enough for the both of them. When she pointed out that he didn’t have to drink them, he’d told her something about taking his solidarity for granted and she’d kindly dropped the subject. 

Maka shuffled through the envelopes. A white one caught her eye. It was pretty beat up, as if it had traveled a long way. An assortment of multicolored stamps decorated the top. She thought it might be from her mom until she saw who it was addressed to.

“Soul, you’ve got a letter from your brother.”

“Mm.” 

He flopped down on the couch beside her and carefully tore the edge of the envelope.

Maka went back to sorting the mail as Soul quietly read the letter. Internet bill, love letter for Blair, cat food ad, phone bill. Nothing for her. Maka tried not to be a little disappointed, but on the other hand she supposed that meant the people who cared about her lived too close to bother with letters anyways. 

Soul wordlessly handed her a stiff piece of paper- a photograph. 

It showed two men, maybe in their late twenties, standing in front of rolling golden hills. The one on the right caught her eye first, perhaps because he looked oddly familiar- he had hair just a shade darker than Soul’s. Even though the man’s features were somehow more narrow and refined, he wore a reserved expression that Maka knew well in spite of never meeting him in person- it couldn’t be anyone other than Soul’s brother. The guy grinning on the right didn’t look familiar- he had dark hair and glasses. In the corner of the photo was ornate cursive text in permanent marker- _Greetings from Napa, bro - Wes._

“That’s my brother and his husband.” Soul explained.

Maka smiled. “Aw, they look so happy! They’re really cute together. Thanks for showing me.”

“Yep.” 

Maka handed him the photo back so he could neatly put it away.

“I guess we’ve both opened up since we were young. He’s lucky I warmed our parents up with the whole ‘weapon’ thing. When one of your kids turns into, well, y’know, a scythe, I guess you have better things to worry about than who the other one dates.” Soul shook his head, “They’re pretty traditional, but they’ll get over him macking with an EDM artist. Eventually.”

“We should send them a photo of us.” 

Soul scrunched his nose. “I don’t look good in photos. And Wes already knows what I look like.”

“You look great in photos!” Maka stuck her tongue out at him. “And if you won’t take a photo with me, I’ll take a candid sneak shot while you’re asleep and send it to him anyways.”

“Don’t.”  
  
“Try me.”

Maka ignored his glare and pulled out her phone- by the time Soul realized what she was doing it was too late.

_Flash._

“ _Hey!_ Asshole! Give me that!” He protested, trying to reach over her shoulder.

“No way! What’s Wes’s email address?” Maka tried to shield her phone from his grabbing hands with her back.

“I’m not telling you.”

“Fine, we’ll send him a photo, but _I_ get to pick which one.” Maka thought that sounded fair enough, so the next time Soul swiped for his phone she didn’t dodge.

Maka leaned onto his shoulder while he scrolled through his phone’s gallery. It was mostly pictures of weird buildings or graffiti he’d seen, with a few of Maka sprinkled in here and there. Hardly any of the photos were of Soul himself. He seemed to only use the selfie camera as a high-tech mirror when he needed to fix his hair. 

“That one’s too blurry,” Maka commented, “Your face is blocked in that one. You’re too far away there.”

Soul grumbled, not appreciating her commentary. “This was _your_ idea, you don’t get to be picky.” He reminded her.

“You know what? I think we can do better than this. Let’s take a trip somewhere, someplace so nice Wes’ll get jealous.”

“A trip?” Soul looked dumbfounded. “Did Kid send us back out someplace already? I thought we were on light duty.”

“Not a work-trip, a trip-trip. No map, no bag, just the two of us.” 

“Oh. A trip without work.” Soul contemplated it as if it were a novel idea, “Sounds cool,” He decided, “but where would we even go?”

“Whatever place we can get tickets to.” Maka rolled away from Soul, stretching her arms and legs, “I’m sick of Death City, I want to get out for a while. It’d be nice to spend some time together without worrying about either of us worrying about dying.”

A slow but certain smile spread on Soul’s face. “Whatever you say.”

Maka killed the rest of her smoothie, leaving only greenish residue clinging to the sides of the glass. Soul didn’t look too eager to follow suit. 

“Want me to dump your drink?” She asked Soul.

Soul stared at his shake with distaste. “No. I’m going to finish it. I just need to prepare emotionally.”

“You really don’t have to-”

“ _ Don’t rush me, woman. _ I know what I’m about. ” He insisted.

Maka stuck her tongue out at him and went to the kitchen to rinse out her glass. 

When she turned the faucet off, the kitchen window caught her eye. Death City was quiet that night. She could hear the fresh evening wind make its way across the landscape. The sound made her feel oddly tranquil. Flowers bloomed in the planter outside. After the experience with the witch, Maka and Soul had agreed they’d be better off killing the flowers and replacing them with cacti or succulents or something that didn’t remind them of a certain witch, but ultimately neither of them had the heart to do it. 

Right now, Maka was glad. They bloomed with pretty white trumpet-shaped blossoms, round and bright in the night. One of the blooms was butting up against a flat, dark object- an envelope. It could have been litter, except they were several floors up off the ground and the wind really wasn’t _ that _ strong. She plucked it from the planter. It really was an odd place to leave mail, but Maka didn’t need to read the envelope to know who it was from.

Soul wandered in to see Maka staring at the unopened envelope. “Yo. Did I miss some mail?” 

“Yeah. I guess this one was hiding,” Maka said. 

“Hm,” Soul said, putting his now-empty glass in the sink, “My bad. Something important?”

He walked behind her and rested a hand on one of her shoulders while peering over the other curiously. The envelope was unmarked, only laced with delicate silver around its edges. Soul probably just saw plain black paper. To Maka, it was a shade or two deeper than black. The black of cursed blood, of tar, of sleepless nights. But it was a beautiful black, too, like the black of shadows cast by a grand church or the black of a midnight sky behind the stars.

Maka ran her fingers across the silky smooth paper. “Just a letter from an old friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Before anyone asks, yes it was inspired by that one futurama episode. Kind of a random story but I ended up writing it through two moves and a crazy job change (hooray for working in EMS during covid), so it was nice to have something to work at during the end of the day and I'm glad I managed to finish it. Hope you liked reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Or if you didn't like it, I hope you learned a little something about southwestern desert flora!


End file.
